The Castle
by RawMateriel
Summary: Cranky and plain, Anne Chalk got exactly what she expected when she fell in love, rejection and quite a bit of cruel laughter courtesy of the object of her affections. It's a pity no one warned her not to fall madly in love with her sisters fiancé sooner, but then again, nothing is set in stone, right?
1. The Cause

**A/N: here we go with the new fic!**

**Please read and enjoy and review if you want me to continue!**

**The pairing is undecided**

**Chapter 1**

**The Cause**

Every person has a story, whether it's one of woe or just one of dull living it doesn't matter, we all have a story. Everyone, every person on Earth has at least that, most members of the human race also deal with a more private journey. The deep seated yearning to know oneself is something most people upon reflection can relate too. To know our origins, our history, to find our roots, we all want to know who we are, to own a little part of ourselves.

There are few things that can be said for sure, according to the great opium huffing philosopher and man about town René Descartes there was only one absolutely true statement available to be spoken, cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am. A dogma, a phrase, an idiom, a fact, a prayer. Most of us are not such thorough doubters, we are happy to believe what the universe presents to be definitive to be true. For example, a cat is a cat, a rock is a rock and a woman's life is only as good as the effect it has on the men in it.

At twenty two, standing at five foot eleven inches and seemingly enjoying a never ending lucky streak Anne Chalk was a strident feminist and an unwelcome student of history and English literature in Castle college in East London that had only recently begun excepting girls the year she decided to enrol to the outrage of her family. She had never lost a bet, could always call a coin and hadn't missed a bus in years. She was just lucky, things went her way, that was until she met _him,_ the epitome of the misogynistic group of chauvinists that offended her sensibilities to nth degree, who had taken her hand and kissed the back like she was one of _the girls_. She knew he had been told, everyone in the college, everyone who attended the clubs knew she was different, she wore a tie for goodness sake! When you met Anna Chalk you shook her hand, you did not, under any circumstances, kiss it! But _he _had. Since then she realised there were consequences to all those years of pushing her luck, he had been sent to teach her a lesson in humility.

She worked tirelessly to top her classes, to stay ahead athletically and to maintain her façade of strength and independence but how she craved to give in. To float through, to lie on in the mornings, to get laid in the evenings, to get drunk in the night, to belong to someone besides herself. It infuriated her, the constant sprint that her life had become as she watched _him _seemingly float at a gentle jog just ahead of her, his wide stride unreachable and he was contented to triumph over her arguably obnoxious high marks while still finding time to bang pretty girls with low self worth and hit the pub nearly every night but that wasn't even the worst part. He had sat to dinner with her mother and she had felt the back of her hand burn and she had had to loosen her tie and had soon asked to be excused. By the end of that terrible night she had fallen in love with him.

The king of Castle college, the reprehensible Fiancé of her own sensually built finer featured twin sister, the infamous Elena Chalk, who was more than happy to be married off to a graduate of the Castle is a story for later. This is about _him_, arrogant, intelligent, sexist and oblivious. Anne blushed when he walked by and went off her food every time he came round for dinner. Anne's nature fought her principles every step of the way, she was a romantic, a completely hopeless romantic and thank the stars, somehow, Sirius Black still didn't know it. Didn't know that the soon to be sister-in-law he so loved to pester dreamt of him often, even wrote the occasional poem about him.

Perhaps it was her good luck that had him s besotted, or so it would seem, with Elena that he had failed to notice her secret shame. So infatuated with the petite, voluptuous and well dressed Elena, who was comfortably uneducated and occupied her days with charity balls where she listened to other higher circle ladies express there concern for her dowdy sister and faun over her desirable fiancé.

In a way, Anne often reflected, ladies who lunch were of a feminist origin, they had their own events, their own way of doing things and their own objectives. It was just a terrible pity, she lamented, that their objectives were to add a 'woman's touch' of fine furnishings to the patriarchies many fine halls as opposed to having any real ambition sourced from themselves independent of the men in their lives. Anne saw their potential, there free spirits, she herself craved a balance where she was not the only one wanting to be more than a fine furnishing, while at the same time still being true to herself as a woman, she didn't think men were bad… most of the time, but sometimes she wished that there was just one man who she could relate to as well as she could relate to other women. One man who would talk to her for hours about the way of things instead of snubbing conversation as a waste of time off the golf course. Women talk, men do; is what Sirius had said one evening as Anne sat stubbornly in the study with the other puffed up old men in there smoking coats as the other ladies retired to the conservatory to see her mothers new shag carpet. Anne talked far less from then on and it drove her mad, she didn't want to have to act like a man to fit in with men but then why didn't men talk? Why did she want to talk so much about everything and if she was such a formidable force of nature compared to her sister, whose new hobby was collecting darning needles, then how come it took one smooth sentence from her betrothed to change Anna's entire social approach? If there was one other thing Anna could say about herself that she believed to be true however it was that she was to big for a woman's life and would never be allowed to have a mans one but there was no way in hell she was going to give up to be some mans woman, she was all she had, if she compromised herself then she would have nothing left.

If you asked the people who knew Anne Chalk what story she would have to tell they would hazard a guess that hers was a tale of tenacious obstinacy in the face of conformity as that is how the wasted intelligence of Elena Chalk had so eloquently put it but if you asked Anne herself she would tell you that excuse you but it is far to soon to tell.

**A/N: Wish me luck and let me know if you like the idea!**

**Thanks for reading.**


	2. Silver Rattle

**Chapter 2**

**Silver Rattle**

Sirius Black had never expected to fall in with muggles, or maybe he had. One great thing about muggles, they don't even know they're muggles, to themselves, they are just people. Muggle women were also much easier then witches which after shagging his way from one end of Hogwarts to the other, Sirius appreciated. What Sirius hadn't expected was to end up engaged to one of them, the intelligent precocious young muggle Elena had easily caught his attention with her soft well projected way of speaking and a laugh that was arguably a little to loud. There other benefits to being around muggles, his Mother was on the verge of an aneurism for one and people weren't fighting post war blues every minute of the day.

After Neville Longbottom had miraculously survived the killing curse and Voldemort had disappeared assumedly but not assuredly having been killed by the rebound people were still acting like there was a war going on. The habits of locked doors and hands wrapped around wands tucked in pockets still occupied the wizarding population like an enemy, like the war was an invasion bringing with it a guaranteed poor nights sleep and bitten fingernails. Lily Potter rarely left her house and James rarely left Lily. They sat in, cocooning Harry, shivering at the thought of something that never happened. Wormtail had quickly fled on a holiday after the war had ended and Sirius had done much the same, though for very different reasons.

Sirius had successfully enrolled in a course for Law along with his close friend and reliable confidante Remus Lupin, Remus had taken an extra module of some muggle Science and Sirius had chosen English under the impression that it would be a piece of cauldron cake to do a course in a language he spoke fluently but unfortunately there was an unexpected amount of muggle literature involved in the course. Explaining his choice with one of the sporadic meeting with James and Remus in the pub later had led to un inordinate amount of mocking from Remus and a quiet sympathy from James as James Potter had made much the same assumption and had recommended the choice to Sirius when he had applied. Hearing this only made Remus laugh harder.

Sirius and Remus had been tired of being idle, Remus, as an under stimulated intellectual and Sirius partially with a petty need to rebel but mostly for the laugh, they had jumped at the chance when Remus had been posted a pamphlet to his muggle apartment for the university. Remus had found it much easier to get housing in non magical areas with his lycanthropy and muggle college was another opportunity to avoid the prejudices of his fellow wizards. Remus had also, bizarre as Sirius thought it, developed a violent crush on Elena's strangely androgynous sister Anne.

Anne, as far as Sirius could tell, only really had a mind for academics, she usually did quite well in her exams and before he had begun had apparently headed the class with ease. She did however seem to lack the ability to converse. She rarely spoke up but instead sat with a stoic strangely aggressive presence. Like her being there was a challenge, which in a way, it was. She simply wouldn't budge and she was always frequenting places she shouldn't. the muggle society didn't have strict laws limiting women to stay out of bars late at night unescorted but as Remus and Sirius had found themselves in the higher circle of things it was obvious that Anne's actions were frowned upon. She was the only woman studying both English and History, there were twenty three other women in the college, eleven in the culinary course and the other twelve studied nursing. Anne didn't seem to care, in fact she didn't seem to care about anything, never mind men, never mind Remus.

Elena on the other hand was a woman of esteem a complete contrast to her twins yang Elena was most definitely yin. Doe eyed, pouty mouthed with her small upturned nose she was enormously pretty and articulate. What attracted Sirius to her most however was her confidence. It never yielded, never a step out of place. Completely secure in her every decision, she was remarkable. The day she had confessed her pregnancy to him she had revealed it following a statement about her charity run for the African famine relief.

* * *

"Oh Sirius, it's wonderful how on board everyone has been, I'm starting to feel like they really care you know, but I won't bore you with the details" she pulled her tea and saucer from the table and took a sup, it was April and they ate together outside in the burgeoning Summer sun; "and you know Sirius I think we can stop all that condom rigmarole now because as it turns out, I'm already three weeks pregnant." she put down her cup and lay back in her palm deck chair. Taking her sun glasses from the table she put them on and side. Sirius had gaped for a moment;

"Hot, isn't it?" she had asked and Sirius had cleared his throat.

"More so by the minute." he had said and Elena had turned to him frowning in concern. She reached over and put a hand on his arm gently.

"Don't worry Sirius." she had said; "We can marry at the end of May and I can just lash another layer of cotton onto my dresses, if I bring them up under my bust no one will even notice when I start showing and we can just say the baby was premature or something. We'll work it out." Sirius had gulped hard and thought of babies as she retracted her hand. "…I'll need some new darning needles though." she had mumbled and that afternoon Sirius went shopping for a ring.

He had seen a small silver rattle in the jewellers and promptly run around the nearest street corner to vomit on his shoes. He then cleaned himself off with a quick spell, went back inside and bought the rattle too. He was going to marry a muggle, shaking his head he had wrapped his hand around the ring box in his pocket and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he looked up Anne stood in front of him, her curly Auburn hair cut up around her chin and the soft blue colour of her sisters eyes looked unhappy rested in the harsh almond sweep that contrasted Elena's rounded doe eyes so much. Red lipstick had been clumsily smudged onto her mouth and she wore mans suit jacket over her lean frame, her tan was dark for a girl.

She looked Sirius up and down, her face expressionless, he smiled at her and took her hand, lifting it to kiss the back but she promptly pulled it from his grasp and caught his own hand in a firm shake before shifting her weight on her feet and raising her chin. She cleared her throat before speaking;

"You have a short memory." she remarked and Sirius laughed easily, used to her cold temperament at this point;

"Do you want to here some exciting news Annie?" he asked and she wrinkled her nose. Her heart was beating quickly, she cleared her throat again. She could smell his cologne, her cheeks began to heat up;

"It's Anne and I don't really care for gossip ." she responded in a cordial tone and he whistled lowly before shrugging. He dropped to one knee and opened the box to show her the ring.

"Do you think Elena will like it?" he asked nonchalantly and Anne could barely speak, for a moment, just for an incredibly stupid moment, she had thought she was receiving a proposal from her sisters boyfriend, her sisters boyfriend who she had so stupidly fallen for. Soon to be her sister fiancé, her heart was breaking.

"It's very soon." Anne managed and Sirius stood up, shrugging again, he looked at the ring. His stomach swished around in his shoes.

"What can I say?" came his response as Anne took slow measured breathes and looked at him, in his expensive leather coat which she hadn't expected to see him but couldn't peel her eyes off of, she watched him watch the ring. Every throb of her heart hurt. Sirius decided it was worth a try as he looked at Anne again.

"Do you remember my friend Remus, Annie?" he asked as he clapped the box shut and shoved it in his pocket causing the rattle to tinkle and his stomach to fall further as Anne raised eyebrow at his pocket before fixing her vacant, detached gaze on him once more and frowning slightly she said;

"It's Anne." and feeling like she needed any excuse in the world to get out of there lucky enough just then a taxi let out an old couple down the street and she took one more look at Sirius as her heart broke more then when she first saw him kissing Elena after realising her feelings and she bumped passed him and flagged the taxi down;

"Congratulations." She called as she climbed in leaving Sirius confused and still nervous on the road. Anne was definitely not a conversationalist.

In the Taxi Anne asked to be dropped to the Castle where she ran into the always empty ladies bathroom by the history archives and cried alone over losing someone who was never hers to lose. She became angry with herself as she did so and stared at her watery eyed reflection in the mirror.

Sirius road back to Elena on his motor cycle, oblivious to her broken heart and Anne cried until the street lights and come on and didn't spare a second thought for the rattling in Sirius's pocket.

**A/N: Well chapter two, it's good to start with a little momentum I think.**

**Thanks for reading and please review!**


	3. A Few Indiscretions

**A/N: Watch out lads there is a wee bit of sexy time in this next bit.**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**A Few Indiscretions**

The boys spoke boisterously in clusters around the lecture about this or that conquest from the weekend before. It was Monday morning and Anne was, as usual, in no mood to hear of the beetle-browed Byron's new lady friend. She sighed and stared at her notes from the last lecture on eighteenth century Irish poets. Frowning at the beautiful apologies Oscar Wilde penned for his wife. All the words of how he was a failure for not being able to love her when she was every perfect thing he could imagine a woman ought to be. The men snickered again as the dirtier details were relinquished and Anne felt damaged by them. She felt terribly alone in the empty front row of the class reading the beautiful poetry and wondering why the men even bothered to come. All they did when Wilde's poetry was mentioned was murmur about him being a shirt lifter and scratch out a few necessary unfeeling notes about his use of language. She began to have trouble staring her notes down. Elena had come to her yesterday to share the news that they had set the date. Sixteen days, she cleared her throat and started to correct a spelling mistake in her notes as even over the incessant rumble of conversation in the room there was a noise just behind her that managed to startle her. She gasped lightly and turned just to see Sirius Black sitting to close, she gulped and began to blush.

"Good afternoon Mr. Black." she said and her voice was hazy from lack of use.

"Afternoon?" he asked confused and appeared to be counting on his fingers before shaking his head distractedly and turning back to her. "Yes I suppose it is isn't it?" he grinned and Anne tightened her jaw as she nodded. She felt like she had two hearts. One heart that tried with all its might to live and love like Anne and the other that lived and loved for Sirius. Her second masochistic broken heart that hid her true self from view. How trying to remember who she was when it hammered in her chest made it more and more difficult the longer it remained there. She didn't know what sort of girl she was anymore, she didn't know her true heart. He clicked a pen as he looked at her blank expression.

"You don't give much do you?" he asked and Anne blanched, his voice seemed to cause a lump in her throat. She cleared her throat again and stared at his hand clicking the pen.

"I'm sorry?" she managed and he dropped the pen and waved a hand in front of her eyes.

"Well I assume you receive a lot considering you don't really send much out for the rest of us. Makes me wonder if your hiding something." he wiggled an eyebrow good naturedly when she did look up at him and he wondered why she was so shy when Elena was so open in so many ways.

"Maybe its your secret I'm hiding Mr. Black, I could just be doing you a service." Anne knew she was one of the first to know about the surprisingly prompt date of the wedding, "Elena came to see me yesterday." she went on and smiled conspiratorially. Trying to play the indifferent sister in law while her heart broke a little. Everything about him seduced her, every casually elegant gesture broke her heart, she once again hoped to God he didn't know it even as he looked at her as if she had just put the fear of God into him. This confused her but Sirius was wondering if she knew and why Elena hadn't told him of her plan. She was usually pretty clear about these things, they made a good time like that. She played by old rules, keeping things on the down low as much as possible. But then again, Anne was her twin sister, different as they were perhaps when it came to keeping secrets that set Anne apart. So why was she teasing him about it, he thought that the cold feminist would have a few things to say regarding a hasty cover up marriage after an accidental pregnancy, but she didn't look any different then usual. No seething anger or righteous gloating, just polite reserve. It twisted his stomach in many ways. Women shouldn't be so cold, especially not young women.

"Ah, and she told you?" Sirius managed, hoping she was referring to something else, trying to be cryptic. Anne was still a little shaken at Sirius statement about only receiving, she felt like a brain in a jar. She just nodded in response before turning to the front and wiping her sweating hands on her handkerchief as he continued to shuffle and click his pen beside her. He wondered what she was playing at as he stared at the back if her.

She did what she had done in every lesson with him so far and grit her teeth while fighting with her every molecule to focus on the lecture rather then turn around and beg Sirius to make every kind of passionate love to her. Every time she began to make progress he would easily distract her, with a shift of his chair or a casual thoughtful humming at some point of interest. She didn't know how she was going to do this for the three years it was going to take to get her preferred degree, unless Sirius dropped the course soon she could certainly kiss a masters good by. What did she intend to do with a masters in English anyway? She reasoned, _escape_ cried her heart as for a moment her thoughts turned away from Sirius and toward her older hopefully even firmer aspirations. To achieve something, to have proof that she deserved what she had, she didn't have it all handed to her. This was something she would do for herself, something that couldn't be achieved any other way then true honest effort on her part, Sirius Blacks toxic beauty was just one more challenge to overcome, she could do it. She was strong enough not to betray her sister.

She didn't love him enough for that, or so she liked to believe. Sirius didn't know why she was the way she was, he didn't understand her motivations. Perhaps she was just a show off or maybe she was just raised cold, as he watched her wiry hands clutched firmly around the muggle pen in her hand to stamp out neat notes in her boxy graceless writing he felt like he could feel the frost of her hard hearted nature wafting over him. Unlike Elena who was open and fluid in her emotions Sirius puzzled again over Anne's clerical ambition, had she been a witch, she'd have been a Slytherin. He sneered at her as she switched pen colour regularly to add further clarity to her meticulous robotic notes. What Remus saw in her he had no idea, but maybe, his curiosity twitched, if he was going to marry into her family it was worth finding out.

* * *

Elena sat in a quiet corner of the tennis clubs lounge making a list of all the things she would need when the baby arrived. She had already acquired a soon to be husband and she new that her Mother still had her pram at the house, her Mother was oddly sentimental with the materiel things that had belonged to her and Anne as children including their double pram and many of there toys but other then the crib there wasn't much else Elena had her eye on. She spared a glance for the ring on her finger and frowned sadly. When she had first met Sirius she had thought him strangely observant and incredibly charming. Though he was sometimes a little absent it suited Elena as she liked to keep herself to herself for the most part. It helped that they were having incredible sex as well but she didn't know if she loved him. She liked him fine, more then she had ever liked a man before him, but she had never believed marriage to be so romantic, marriage was a lot of things, it was secure and traditional and it looked good to be a wife, better than be a spinster, miles better than be like Anne. All Anne ever received in return for her efforts to earn respect was pity, poor misguided Anne.

Elena had wanted to run to her, to tell her everything, to tell her especially, that she knew more about Anne's heart then she was letting on. When Elena had first brought Sirius to meet her family she had been far from in love with him, but she was incredibly impressed by him. Funny, considerate and just a little bit bad, he played nice with her parents. When Elena saw Anne's shock at Sirius's audacity she had been tickled, it was so like her twin sister to act like the actions of a respectful gentleman equated to a slap in the face. What happened next Elena could not understand, how Anne had stared Sirius with wide eyes as he spoke and narrowed eyes when she spoke to him. She had said all of two sentences two him that night but it was enough for her closest companion, her oh so different sister to know, she was very much taken with Sirius. Elena wished she had been kinder to her, regretted her decision to pursue the admittedly gorgeous man. In a way she thought she was doing Anne a favour, she truly believed that her intellectual twin could turn away, would turn away if it was made how clear the object of her affections was very much detained else where. But Anne had stared in with wide and narrow eyes, if there was any change at all it was that she holed herself in more, she hadn't talked, really talked to Elena in weeks and she suspected it was to hide her true feelings from her. It hurt that her sister wouldn't trust her but at the same time it was a relief, a relief that Anne believed that Sirius didn't see her because he was blinded by Elena. So much better for her to chuck her stinging resentment toward her sister rather than toward herself for not being good enough for him. Elena new well that Sirius would never have spared the time of day for her younger twin, not even a second glance.

But the simple social folly between the sisters and Sirius Black had suddenly become unendingly more complicated as Elena had foolishly fallen pregnant and as she rubbed her hand over still flat belly she worried her lip. When Elena was just fifteen, she had fallen pregnant after having her drink spiked at a junior mixer in her school. Telling no one she had entered a much more sordid area of London and had the issue 'taken care of' in an establishment that by day served as a dentists office. She had learnt then that though she had proved herself capable of being so truly sinister that she would never be able to do that to a child of hers again. Not like that, it had taken three years before she had truly felt physically normal again but mentally she didn't think she would ever recover.

Perhaps in another life, in a safe situation, where she wasn't just a child dealing with an issue so far beyond her, she could have done it without feeling so emotionally scarred. But it was knowing full well that the woman who had promised to 'help' her had done her such thorough damage that the smell of infection hadn't left her for two and a half months that made it so much more traumatising to even consider for a moment to do it a second time. This baby was going to stay inside her and she was going to make sure that her child was never to afraid to speak to her, never to scared to come to her about something. Ensure that her child never had to feel the shame she had. She folded the list and put in her purse as she took a sip of her ice tea. Sirius's friend whom she recognised to be on consideration as best man entered the lounge. She accessed the lines of his figure for a moment and decided that he would look just fine a tuxedo cut suit. She stood with her ice tea and fixed the ruffles on her yellow dress that came under her bust and put on a grand warm smile as she approached him. He turned his amber eye to her and smiled shyly. Sirius hadn't formally introduced them yet so she was a bit hesitant to waltz up and introduce herself but she held her hand anyway feeling a bit brash.

"You're Sirius Blacks friend aren't you?" she asked and his eyes flashed with a small amount of concern as he took her hand politely and gave it a light squeeze. She was a at a loss for words for a moment as her let go without kissing just below wrist as she had expected. Perhaps she had been to brash, she closed her slightly lolling mouth and smiled politely and cautiously.

"I'm afraid so, I'm Remus, what has he done now?" he asked seeming a little apprehensive and Elena placed her ice tea on the bar feeling thoroughly confused as she cleared her throat and turned to him. Trying to keep a warm endearing composure as her brow begged to crinkle in confusion and her lips pulled for a frown. He had introduced himself as Remus? Was she to call him by his first name even though she had just met him? Could she still ask for his second name so she could address him more appropriately.

"I'd like to think he is keeping his nose relatively clean to tell you the truth, Remus." she tried to be easy with him but something about his soft scarred face put her on edge. She spoke around his name, sounding it out. Remus smiled and ordered a cup of tea from behind the bar.

"You are an optimist then." he stated, his tone playful but seemingly honest. "In all the time I've known him I would argue that keeping a clean nose isn't exactly in his repertoire."

"And how long have you know him," she coloured slightly as he took a coaster and put it under her dripping ice tea, "exactly?" she finished scanning the scars on his hands briefly as he let go of her glass.

"Oh we went to school together since we were quite young." he smiled fondly and received his tea which he began to add copious amounts of sugar to. Elena noted him being cryptic and unthinkingly slipped off her engagement ring and placed it into her cardigan pocket as her mischievous streak pushed her to follow his lead. "How do you know him?" he asked pouring milk into the cup;

"He goes to college with my sister." Elena smiled and took a sip of her ice tea, wondering how the man had afforded entrance to the Castle college or even the tennis club judging by the state of his worn ill fitting clothing.

"Your sister goes to the Castle?" he asked, seemingly more intrigued.

"Yes, unfortunately." Elena responded and met his eye again. He looked away quickly before turning back.

"Anne?" he asked and Elena raised any eyebrow and smiled conspiratorially.

"How did you know?" she asked lightly despite her genuine curiosity.

"Your eyes." and he said it so intimately that Elena's heart picked up. She wondered what sort of friend he was to Sirius? She knew they were close, old friends. Remus must know of their engagement. Pity, she thought. She wondered if they did have a bit of a fool around if he would tell Sirius or not. She wondered if he knew of there engagement at all, she had been playing the social circus along time and she had easily observed that Remus had yet to check her hand for a ring. Was it possible that Sirius had kept it from Remus? Now she almost felt like he deserved to find a suspicious hickey on his Fiancé.

"I'm Elena," she stated purposefully; "Elena Chalk." Remus nodded through a sup of his tea.

"Pleasure." he managed when he lowered it back to the counter and Elena was infuriated. How could he not know? He could just as easily be making a speech at her wedding in well under a month and he didn't even know it was happening. Elena's nostrils flared as she smiled kindly.

"Do you play?" she asked casually and Remus nodded as he pointed to a racket case rested by the others at the lounge door. She looked over at it for a moment before finishing her ice tea and taking his hand; "I'd very much like to see your serve." she informed him and Remus looked down at her hand on his and met her eyes with his narrowed suspiciously and a smile playing across his mouth;

"Alright Ms. Chalk." he allowed and dropped some change on the counter for his tea before going to retrieve his racket.

"Haven't you got a tab Remus?" Elena asked him as she eyed at the change and Remus laughed a little bitterly as he stood and turned to her with his racket slung over his back;

"Oh no." he said like it was silly to ask and she glanced at the change on the counter again before turning to face him and laughing lightly. She walked to him carefully, keeping her motions purposely fluid and together they walked out toward the court.

Within the hour the pair had found their way into a store room on the far court with the warm sun shining through a small high window near the roof and Elena's petite form had been lifted to the wall with ease by an unassuming Remus Lupin. Her sweet enthusiastic kisses driving him round the bend his hand slipped under her expensive skirt to hold her thigh. He ground against her passionately as she arched off the wall toward him and ran her hand under his shirt. In contrast to popular belief Remus was no stranger to innate reckless lust, although many of the people who new him would consider it scandalous, despite his unfortunate misguided affections, Remus's sex life was a roaring success. Unlike Sirius however, he didn't try and have every sexual encounter published in the paper afterward.

"The zip is at the back." Elena whispered in her feminine tone and Remus nodded quickly as he lowered her shaky legs to the ground and turned her around confidently. He unzipped her dress quickly kissed the back of her neck and let it fall to the ground. Slipping the catch on her brassiere effortlessly and running a hand down over her soft curved body; Remus felt her quiver as he touched her heavy breast and ran a hand along the line of her undergarments. He smiled as she whimpered slightly and placed her hand over his.

"Remus." she sighed;

"On your knees." he whispered and she laughed breathily;

"Yes sir." She turned to face him and kissed him hard before dropping down in front of him and moving to the button on his trousers. Remus groaned as she released him from his to tight clothing and felt the cool air of the room breeze over his sensitive cock. Elena pulled her golden blonde hair over to her shoulder as she looked up at him. Her up do had come undone and her lipstick was worn to a delicate pink. She was, Remus reflected, an exceptionally beautiful woman. He tried to ignore Anne's eyes, Anne had made it clear that she was quite unfeeling. He marvelled at the softness in her sisters gaze for a moment before hissing as she let loose a mischievous flash in her eye and wrapped her mouth around the head of his member. Her hair set in heavy pin curls and her eyes closed as she glided up and down his shaft with wicked flicks of her clever tongue. Remus placed a hand on the wall beyond her, his knees weak as he watched her. One of her hands rested delicately on his placed at her shoulder and the other handling what her talented mouth couldn't, she brought him to the edge quickly. His breathing ragged, he groaned lowly as she hummed over his sensitive skin and increased her pace.

"Oh Fuck;" he grunted, she began to take him deeper into her mouth and run her fingernails up and over the ridges of the many scars along his abdomen "Elena, I'm going to cum, dear Merlin that's- uh.." he grunted as she popped her mouth off of him and finished him shortly with her hand as he slumped forward to catch himself with both hands on the wall. He turned and lent against the wall heavily as he heard Elena rise to her feet beside him. She pressed a single delicate kiss to his lips then and began to pull her dress up off the floor Remus tried to think of something to say as she managed to zip her own dress promptly;

"I could…" he tried and smiled cheekily as she turned to face him and he gestured toward the tops of her thighs "return the favour?" he finished as she met her eyes and she took in his figure looking thoroughly compromised panting and flushed against the wall. She shook her head and smiled brightly as she walked to him and fixed his trousers from where they had rested at the top of his thighs to there correct position.

"Maybe another time Merlin?" she asked and he blushed as he was caught on his slip. He laughed detachedly as he picked up her cardigan for her;

"We used to say it in school I guess it kind of;" a ring clinked out of the baby blue pullover and clinked lightly on the floor and he picked it up stiffly, assuming he was mistaken; "slipped into my vernacular." he finished. As he turned to Elena in confusion holding the ring to her, she stared at it.

"Probably best not to mention this to anyone Mr. Lupin." she laughed, as light and unaffected as ever as she slipped on the cardigan and took the ring. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked him and she shrugged as she replaced her engagement ring on her finger. She remembered the phrase from when she had first seen her mother send a man out of the house that wasn't her father, her mother had turned to her and said; 'Can you keep a secret for your mommy?' and Elena had nodded. She had said it was regular, it was the way of things. At eight she hadn't thought it was ok but she wouldn't betray her mothers confidence. At eighteen she had slipped into the habit herself. Nothing stopped her from feeling like a victim of the men around her like sleeping with them. When she thought of that night all those years ago, waking up with fogged terrified helpless memories and the burning shame only worsened when she had realised she was pregnant. Nothing made it feel farther away then the decisive and controlled encounters she had with men now. Sometimes she did feel ashamed but then, she rationalised, she wasn't really doing anything wrong, it was her business, as long as no one got hurt, as long as no one found out.

"I can as a matter of fact." Lupin admitted giving her a penetrating look as she fidgeted with the ring on her finger. "Apparently so can you." he added as Elena eventually broke away from his accusatory stare. There was an awkward air in the room then as Elena stared at the floor and Remus stared at her hand until eventually the bright eyed mysterious woman seemed to shake off what had happened and smiled prettily at him. Remus felt like he understood her better then, she was an actress, a very good and most probably, a very damaged actress. He buttoned his trousers and gave her another inquisitive glance as he walked toward her and she had her hands joined in front of her daintily. She thought him increasingly handsome when he looked at her like that.

"I'll see you again Remus." she said politely and when he didn't react she simply turned gracefully and walked for the door. Remus watched her go with dwindling recognition and it was only after she had gone that he remembered the last time he had been in the pub with Sirius more than a month before and on his list of lays was the charismatic and eloquent Elena Chalk. He wondered if he should mention to Sirius that one of his conquests was probably engaged at the time of there affair. He also allowed his nose to wrinkle slightly as he thought it was a bit tasteless to get off with a woman who had been involved with Sirius, never mind a girl who was due to be married. Who ever the poor bugger was who was engaged to her, in a lot of ways, Remus didn't envy him. But then again he thought as he basked in what was left of his post orgasmic glow, maybe he did envy him a bit. He shook his head slowly as he thought of the job he had offered in flourish and blotts before he had been landed in all this muggle business with Sirius. He thought of Anne, apparently he wouldn't have to worry about his damaging his already incredibly bleak chances with the stoic girl as Elena did not seem to really up to sharing any information. He looked around the store room and decided it was actually quite useful as a place to disapparate before turning on the spot and landing in the reliably unused ladies bathroom by the history archives in The Castle.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading and please review!**


	4. Careless

**Chapter 4**

**Careless**

Anne sat on the posh marble floor of the ladies in the castle and methodically pulled at the torn skin surrounding the welt on the top of her breast which had started with a patch of flaking skin and had over the last ten minutes protected her from her burgeoning thoughts with the distraction of its nagging pain and the recent stream of quickly drying blood. The movement, though grotesque, was not unusual to her. She often fell into such physically deprecating compulsions when feeling anxiety. Her repressed stress manifesting itself in habits like picking and preening her skin to the point of drawing blood. She felt a sort of shame for it when she saw the marks it left. They were ugly and difficult to explain away should someone saw them. As she thought of what someone would think should they see her abnormal and disturbed actions without understanding the lack of clear thought that had led her to them she bit her lip. It still took her a minute to eventually remove her hands from what a part of her brain reviewed as unfinished business. As if further assaulting the angry skin would make it smooth and stop it bleeding, she looked at the blood under her finger nails and groaned as she looked at her skin.

She should have known better then to let herself start, it was compulsive and demeaning to her ability to act soundly. She stared at the puckered red flesh for a moment longer, her fingers itched, it sat like a little confession of her turmoil on her soft skin, angry red turmoil. She pulled herself from the floor and turned to face herself in the large mirror over the sink. She looked far away, she pulled her top up over the edge of the cut and balled her hands into fists to hide her bloody finger nails. She looked so normal then, as if it had never happened. She shook her head and sighed before leaning over the sink to wash her hands. The edge of the cut still showed slightly pink as she leaned over and she pulled the top up further as she rolled up her sleeves. She had been wearing one of her nicer tops, one of her more feminine ones, still, no one looked at her, she wasn't Elena, she knew that.

After class, Sirius had tried talking to her, he didn't even seem to have an agenda, as if he just wanted to talk with her for the sake of it. It had been a very difficult conversation for her to got through;

"So Anne, have you been enjoying the course so far?" he asked off-hand as she packed up her stationary and she turned to him with a furrowed brow. He had to have been talking to her, he had addressed her by name. unless it was meant for Andrew who was on the other side of the room talking about getting drinks in the Y later. She assumed the Y was a club.

"Yes, quite satisfactory." she said and wondered how to phrase things to make them sound more fluid, she often sought fluidity. Sirius always made her more aware of her faults, he was so observant, it was like he could see right through her. Her nudity scared her but she still maintained the pretence of clothing as he probed further.

"Satisfactory, eh?" he asked and she felt embarrassed for no reason; "considering the amount of trouble you went threw to get in here it surprises me that you would show such little enthusiasm." he was so politely tactless, she really didn't hate men, most of the time. How she loved him though.

"How does one correctly flaunt ones enthusiasm Mr. Black?" she bit back defensively as she slung her bag over her shoulder and eyed his figure as he rose with his usual casual grace from his seat. How he could do it she had no idea.

"A smile would be a good start Annie." he grinned as she lent against her desk to face him behind her and pushed a piece of her hair behind her ear;

"It's Anne." she said and tried desperately to think of something to politely put and end to the conversation without making it obvious that she really didn't want too. "How about you? How do you like it?" she asked, cautiously skirting topics that might hurt her heart to be reminded of aloud. Like how much Elena had loved the ring, Anne had already been told, or how much Sirius loved her sister, Anne could tell by the fact that he was trying to talk to her.

"Well I'll tell you this much, it's not quite what I expected when I applied." he said as he pulled his satchel up onto his shoulder. He fell into step beside her as she walked out of the lecture hall.

"You were expecting more British literature?" Anne asked as she thought of the amount of modern American work had dominated the first and most of the second term.

"No no," Sirius trailed on as they walked toward the hall, he though a blinding grin at her as he made his way down the hall, a moment she thought, as the sun flashed in his eyes and made her hair stand on end, she would never forget. "quite a bit more actually." and Anne smiled because she was falling in love all over again as he reeled her in with his every smooth gesture. To him she had no immunity.

"There's a smile!" he grinned easily, the brightest man she had ever seen. Her mouth felt almost strangely stretched as the smile faded again. She stared ahead and tried not to breath into much of his distracting masculine scent.

"Yes, there it is." she sighed and pushed her hair back again as they walked and Sirius whistled lowly as he often did when disapproving of something he hadn't expected;

"and there it goes." he muttered as she tried to imagine, with as much heart breaking detail as possible, him on one knee before her beloved sister. She still wanted him to kiss her as they reached his motorbike at the side of the building. He began digging through its store for a helmet, she thought the store to strangely spacious for a moment as he rustles through it before unearthing his head gear. She stared at him, the sun shining from his back, his helmet in his hand, his stream lined black vintage bike beside him looking completely mouth watering and wondered how she could survive another minute without simply being on him.

"Would you like to come for a ride?" he asked casually as he closed the storage and she gulped hard as her brain span off in a million way ward fantasies and her heart yearned to say yes.

"Not really, no." she lied blatantly, eyeing the bike and denying her every true wish aside from the wish to be a good person and to be true to herself, her sister and her principles. The only things protecting her form a most thorough humiliation. Black looked taken aback for a moment before he shrugged and hopped on his bike. Anne almost wanted to avert her eyes.

"Suit yourself then Chalk." he grunted as her kick started his bike and pulled on his helmet before speeding off taking hundreds of forbidden hopes with them and leaving Anne with only the fantasies and bloodied anxious deprived hands in the ladies bathroom.

She stared her reflection as she washed her hands and sneered at it.

"Next time you need to keep your hands busy just have a wank Anne." she told herself with scorn as she stared the stony girl in front of her and grabbed one of the folded pressed towels at the side of the sink;

"Yup," she hissed as she fought the urge to bite her fingernails; "just a nice healthy wank over Elena's Fianc- hey Jesus fuck!" Anne stood with her back presses flat to the wall staring at a sandy haired equally shocked looking man she knew to be called Remus Lupin. Sirius had pointed him out on several occasions and to her shame there wasn't a word that came out of Sirius's mouth Anne didn't automatically commit to memory.

Anne wouldn't have been nearly so bothered by the mans presence if he hadn't quite happily appeared out of thin air with a shocking pop. She rubbed her eyes and opened them to see him still standing there mouth gaping;

"No one ever comes in here!" he accuses as an opening as if its her fault that he had defied Physics and logic in preposterous number of different ways with one mind boggling action.

"Evidently not!" Anne yells in her hoarse tone and Remus Lupin stares at the ground before pinching the bridge of his nose and cursing;

"You're right of course Anne." he sighed as he finds a cubicle to press his back to; "I shouldn't have been so careless." she could here her heart in her ear as she scanned the room for something to explain away what had just happened but like so many things, the magical Remus Lupin didn't seem to be that simple.

**A/N: Thanks for reading and please review!**


	5. Passion

**A/N: Thankyou so much for your support, it means everything.**

**Chapter 5**

**Passion**

"Mr. Lupin I demand an explanation!" Remus's frustrations seemed to lift for a moment as she shouted this at him.

"You know my name?" he asked like it was of the utmost importance. Anne was afraid, surely there was no crime in it, he knew hers, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the unnatural thing that Lupin had apparently been a part of.

"I'm going mad!" Anne cried as she pulled at her hair and stared at the frayed and tired looking man standing in the middle of the ladies bathroom.

"Anne, please, I can explain…" he began and Anne whirled to face away from him. Staring at the wall, she felt no calmer.

"Can you really? Are you a shrink?" she revised what had happened in her head again, crying, cursing, frowning and then screaming as a familiar man dropped onto the floor as if he had been there all along with a nice dramatic crack that still rang in her insane ears.

"No Anne, I'm a wizard." He announced lowly and she span around to glare at him.

"That's not funny Remus, you tell me what is going on here right now!" she cried and he thought he had never seen her so present, so demanding, so vocal. She had always kept her thoughts to herself, rather expressing her rebellious tendencies in action, he admired it, he wished he knew how to do the same without making a mockery of himself. Although he supposed, Anne was considered by many to be making a show of herself by trying to blaze her own trail. Remus stared into her piercing blue eyes that usually looked so clouded and far away and shivered. Perhaps the cold Anne Chalk could rival her sister for passion after all, her nostrils flared and so did the torch he carried for her.

"You know my whole name, why?" was all that came from his mouth as she felt ready to tear it off. He had the same infuriating crackling presence as his friend, the same disinterest in other peoples concerns that drove her so far from her mind. The attitude that made it seem like they were belittling everything around them, as if they were some how so much more then the castle and her and now they even seemed to act against the basic laws of the universe by slipping through space like it wasn't even there. As if this whole endeavour was a game, a bit of fun.

"Sirius mentioned you," she for some reason defended before stepping up close to him and pointing a finger under his chin. "tell me you didn't just zap in here as if by magic Lupin, tell me I'm crazy, round the twist, seeing things, tell me I am being ridiculous and to go and get my eyes checked. Come on!" he stared at her eyes. They weren't really very like Elena's at all, not in that moment, in that moment she looked at him, really looked at him, she hid nothing in her gaze, nothing was guarded, it was nothing like what he had become so used to and he savoured it. He raised his wand and turned the taps on and off as she stared at it and turned startled toward the taps before eyeing him up again and staring at the door behind him. Wanting to get out of this wild too-real dream, needing to escape.

"It's my wand." he stated before flickering the lights and tucking it back into his sleeve. Anne wrapped her arms around herself and felt like she was going to be sick. What sick prank was being played on her, who would go through so much trouble, who was this Remus guy, really? She eyed him up and down again, her reassessing gaze making him fidget. She took in his bed head of sand blonde hair and tried, even in a moment such as this, to not stare at the scar that ran along the side of his face and the others around and up his neck and hands. She took in his straight nose and bizarre amber eyes and frowned as she stared at his wand again before holding her hand out;

"Hand it over." she demanded and he frowned and shook his head. She moved her face close to his, speaking through gritted teeth and punctuating each word with a poke as she commanded him forcefully;

"Give. It. To. Me." Remus eventually placed the wand in her hand rubbing the assaulted place on his chest. He would have to obbliviate her memory, he decided, but first, he would memorise each expression she made as she examines her surroundings in lingering shock. He tried to absorb every detail she demonstrated as she actually managed to express something. He had wondered often since Autumn if she was as passionate as he thought her and as she stared, crinkle browed and frustrated at the wand he was so familiar with he knew he had been right. Which meant she was hiding something.

"You know Sirius well?" he inquired and felt foolishly antsy at having a wand pointed at him despite it being in the hands of a muggle, he had never seen a muggle hold a wand before. It was strange as she waved it and the room remained completely still. For a moment he thought he saw something shift but he knew he was just being foolish;

"Well I'd want to wouldn't I?" she responded as she turned the taps on and off by hand before flicking the wand at them; "What with him marrying my dear sister and everything." she finished bitterly before lowering the wand and turning to see that Lupin looked ready to double over;

"What?" he rasped and Anne turned to him trying to keep her head. So Lupin was a brilliant illusionist for his magic wand was nothing but tailored worn wood. She passed it back to him and held out her hand;

"It has been nice speaking with you Mr. Lupin but please promise me never to do another one of your magic tricks in my presence." Lupin reached for her hand and Anne braced herself as she always did to be reminded of everything she fought to escape with a kiss to the hand but he, instead, naturally shook hers without any pointed emphasis. She cracked a smile as she passed him his wand but he didn't reach for it. He just stared at how her face changed when she smiled, he regretted, more then ever, his imprudence in dealing with Elena. He stared at Anne, racked with a stomach weighing guilt. His vague attachment to Anne insensibly infected with a large amount of emotion as she smiled at him. She looked relieved almost. He eventually took his wand and held it toward her. Anne raised her hands and he eyebrows.

"Don't hurt me!" she exclaimed before lowering her hands and snorting inelegantly with laughter; "or cast a spell on me!" she cried and laughed again. "I do wonder how you did that Mr. Lupin but I don't dare ask, for I know a magician never reveals his secrets." Anne shook her head and then remembered herself. She cleared her throat and sobered. Remus watched her throw a wall up sourly before smiling kindly and pushing his wand back into his coat.

"Call me Remus." he instructed her and Anne pushed her hair behind her ear;

"But Remus is a mans name." she announced soberly and Remus frowned and nodded as another rare smile flashed on her mouth; "Well then maybe you should get out of the ladies lou Remus, and call me Anne." She skirted around him and walked out onto the hall. Trying to push the incident from her mind as she marched toward the stair well and began to march out of the castle Anne thought she had heard a breathy laugh from Lupin on the way out and even thought it could have easily been a huff of air through the vent she still replayed the sound in her mind. How that sound could be such close friends with the bark that called a smile to all surrounding faces such as Sirius's she couldn't really fathom. But then again there were a lot of things about men that she couldn't figure out. Why, for example, Lupin had looked ready to hit himself over the head with a brick when she had mentioned his own best friends engagement. Then again maybe it was the shock that someone like Elena could be so closely related to someone like her. Although recently Anne wasn't sure what she was like, but she definitely wasn't Elena, she knew that.

Remus felt like he could breathe after she had left the room and marvelled once again at the muggles ability to explain away what was staring them in the face. Then, as he caught his own reflection in the mirror he saw the slight pink tinge to his mouth from Elena's lipstick and the grim reality that he had just had a sexual encounter with Sirius's bride to be settled in his stomach like a pile of rocks.

"What am I going to do?" he asked the empty room and he turned quickly to the door Anne had just walked out of; "What have I done?"

**A/N: thanks for reading and make sure to review!**


	6. An Altercation

**Chapter 6**

**An Altercation**

Anne waited patiently in the main area of the Y club to be addressed by the manager. She had been hunting for a job for some time now and was surprised when of all the businesses she applied the Y was the one to respond to her unskilled resumé. Anne, to her ire, had spent the last few years since completing second level education unemployed and generally unoccupied. Never one to be idle Anne had of course found things with which to fill her time. Her father had never been a great supporter of women in sport but even he had to admit that Anne was an impressive athlete. With all her focus and ambition, Anne had trouble failing at anything she set her mind to. Competing in fencing, tennis and sailing Anne usually enjoyed a sport for its ability to hold her mind but it was also another way by which she could separate herself from the girls whom she had been friend with in her school days. Her so called frill loving shrill talking friends who still looked down there noses at her for trying to be herself. She knew why they acted that way though.

Being an aspiring house wife was easy when every other person in your position to whom you were introduced shared the same ambition but then to meet someone who treated your life plan like a bad rash, someone like Anne, it didn't exactly encourage affection. To meet someone who led you to question things that had been so clear and simple before, it would be hard not to resent them just a little. Near impossible to not react negatively to a person forcing you to look at yourself differently by playing the contrast. Of course Anne had to deal with being alone and unsure, it was only that she didn't know how to be anything but herself that meant Anne had no rhyme or reason to second guess herself. The sad thing was that Anne knew who she wanted to be and she knew how she acted, but she still did not know herself. Even she was often deceived by her conflicted nature, she feared that without Elena to stand beside she wouldn't have a grounding. So far all she knew for sure was that she wasn't Elena. A cat is a cat, a rock is a rock and where the Chalk sisters came from came from a woman's life was only good as the effect it has on the men in it, unless of course, that woman was as stubborn and lonely as Anne.

The Y, she noted as she entered the refurnished hotel, was a yachting club, she had never raced on a yacht but she knew a great deal of the theory from her experience on boats and decided she could easily handle one. The thick grey moustached manager emerged, seeming kindly and not to puffed up at the site of her. She had worn black slacks which she had had taken up and a white shirt which she had tucked in below her lucky leather belt, not that she wasn't lucky enough as it was.

"Ms. Chalk?" the manager enquired needlessly, the club was quite empty that time of day and she was clearly the only potential Ms. Chalk there. She shook his hand and stood up, smiling coolly.

_I am not shy, I am coherent and confident. _she assured herself as she nodded to him;

"and you applied for the position of…?" he allowed her to elaborate;

"What ever position is available sir." she responded and kept her posture straight and her smile inviting.

"Well, yes very good. Much experience Chalk?" he pressed and she wondered if he had even glanced at her résumé,

"Around boats sir, yes. In service no, I am a student. This will be my first job." his woolly eyebrows knitted together as she said this and she tipped her head in a movement so contrived it irritated her. "Something wrong sir?"

"Not at all, not at all, just wondering why you were sent to the second round with no experience." she thought him oddly blunt but internally she was a little smug. Just a spot of good luck.

"I was wondering that myself sir." Anne felt the corner of her fixed smile twitch with true warmth for a moment as the man eyed her up. "I am a fast learner sir, and most excited to begin working as soon as possible. Please put me to work, have me scrub the floor on my hands and knees sir if that is all you can offer me but please just put me to work." she spoke in earnest. The truth was, her parents expected to support her till she married, but Anne doubted more and more with each passing day that she would ever be married. Thirteen days, thirteen days left till their wedding.

"Can you wait tables?" he asked suspiciously, as if he thought she might lie. She watched his brown eyes as she nodded again;

"Well there's only one way to find out sir." within the next few minutes the shook hands again and Anne left, she was pleased. She was compelled to celebrate and decided to call over to Elena, despite how difficult it had become to not feel to guilty around Elena, she dearly missed her sister. Once outside she climbed aboard her bike and cycled homeward. It was true Elena still lived in the same place as her sister but Elena had moved into the series of rooms separate to the house out by the pool while Anne had nearly an entire ten rooms to herself within the house, eight of which she never used. She had still been known, before she had moved into college, before Sirius or before she had stopped sailing, to spend most of her time when at home with Elena in her rooms, talking or playing cards or, just between them, a little fencing.

She knocked on the door outside of Elena's cottage like abode and waited. She used to just walk right in, but it had been so long, and so quiet between them that she felt she had to knock. Anne stepped back from the door and stared at the well painted solid white wooden door and suddenly she heard a bang from inside, and another. Then Elena yelling, and a mans voice she found oddly familiar, and Sirius, he was in there with the two of them. The door swung back and Sirius stormed out, a dark, unyielding expression on his face, Anne opened her mouth, to say what she didn't know;

"Not now." Sirius hissed absurdly close to her and she could see Elena at the door in a wonderful blue dress with unshed tears floating in her eyes.

"Sirius." she hissed, it was a demand, a demand for what Anne didn't know. Her sister looked ready to dissolve as Lupin was suddenly standing behind her in a light that suited him but drew attention to the scar lining his cheek. Maybe that was why it suited him, he pulled Elena out of the way of the doorway by her elbow and stepped out toward Sirius with a stony expression on his face. Sirius stared Elena his flitting from Lupin to me occasionally but mostly he received a beseeching stare from the blonde woman in the door way. Mouthing please reaching to him. Whatever was occurring was sinister, but then, the four of them stood there on the patio and the sun a high in a the sky and there was a shift. a tension in the space between them seemed to break and out of no where Anne felt her head spin and her heart swell with to many emotions to fathom and Sirius kissed her.

**A/N: Thankyou all so much for your reading and any further support is much appreciated**


	7. A Seed of Doubt

**Chapter 7**

**A Seed of Doubt**

While Anne had been deciding whether or not to wear a tie to her interview Elena had been having rather glorious sex with her spectacular fiancé Sirius Black. She noted that he seemed to not only have a quick mind for learning new things but also had an innate natural talent in the bedroom. He kissed her delicately making her head light as he fell into her again and again. Finding her rhythms and sweet spots effortlessly like no one else could as they groaned over each others mouths.

"You're exceptional." she sighed as she felt a second orgasm building and pressed tighter to Sirius as moved a hand to hold her hip and began a new, deliciously relentless pace. The slap of skin and panting filled the room as Elena's back arched and her toes curled.

"I love you." he called like a prayer as he drove into her and she closed her eyes as her body shuddered. Shoots of white hot pleasure running through her every nerve as she tried to remember how to breath. She quaked unconsciously a few times as she breathed harsh puffs of air up at Sirius's smug pleasure ridden face. Her skin felt flushed her head light and she slowed again, Sirius followed her pace to sensual and soft once more making her exhausted body shiver with anticipation.

"how do you do that?" she asked as he grinned happily down at the pleasure drunk woman;

"Easy;" he murmured against her mouth as he kissed her languidly again making her sigh; "I just had to meet you." he grinned again as she trembled lightly under his firm hands;

"Not that," she laughed lightly against his mouth as his breath became ragged and she tensed herself around him; "_this_." she explained continuing to exude her heady glow; "how are you so perfect at this?" she finished warmly before her mouth shaped into a small _o_ and her head reeled. He palmed her breast softly as he moved harder against her, adding more thorough pressure to her swollen, sensitive clitoris.

"Well you know, practice makes," he paused, letting his face fall against her clavicle as she fluttered hotly around him; "perfect, right?" he smiled at her and kissed the side of her breast before finding her ring and kissing that to;

"Oh, Practice? So there are other girls?" she laughed as he bit her finger;

"You think I could go for this long if there were other girls?" he asked as she turned him over to rest on top and melted against him in a passionate kiss as he pulled her down on him harder; her breath hitched;

"I'm flattered." he muttered and she laughed her slightly to loud laugh and slapped his chest.

"Well, Mr. Black I think you have me well enough satisfied for me to allow a few indiscretions," she bit at his ear sending warm kisses down as his flushed neck. Her satiated body moving gently over him receiving each deep thrust with the new found vigour of her second (or was it eight?) wind as she hummed softly over his ear.

"Make you come three times and I'm home free? Well that's an interesting deal I must say." her body began a promising low thrum as she sat up to bounce more heavily against him. She moaned gutturally and Sirius reflected that he had never met a woman so ground shakingly warm, so humbly intimate, a girl that put him so at ease. He thought for a moment, that surely she would make a fine wife, yet he couldn't bring himself to explain the hasty, patchy situation to his friends. In that moment he was ashamed to be ashamed of her.

"Only twice now actually." she corrected him and he rolled his eyes;

"Oh come now Elena, I was right in the middle of having some lovely thought about you before you said that!" she smiled wildly and placed a hand by his head as she leaned over him. Her eyes lidded, her skin flushed, her blonde hair tickled his chest. She kissed him and sobered;

"Come now?" she asked raising an eyebrow in challenge and he rolled her back onto her back as she giggled; "no really!" she cried as he began tickling her sides; "I'll come if you want." she arched her back in faux climax as she moaned loudly crying out Sirius's name so enthusiastically as she clenched and unclenched her tight feminine muscles he panicked slightly that she had been faking before as her raspy breath filled the room. She let her body lie lax as she opened her eyes and looked up at him innocently. She bit her lip and ran her nails lightly over his back making his muscles fidget of there own accord. He tried to not let his ire show, he also attempted to not look to turned on by her reportedly fake but whole heartedly convincing display.

"There you are Sirius," she looked up at him, her eyes dancing as she wrapped her legs high around his waist as his hands unconsciously brushed along the contours of her limbs. "that's three for three." he licked his lips as he felt his deprived cock twitch against the velvet walls of her hot sheath,

"You're a better liar then I had expected," he muttered lowly and her brow furrowed with an unexplained concern making his gut twist for a moment as he saw something like fear flash in her eyes. He bent to kiss her, pushing it from his mind before moving fast against her once more feeling the need for his own release as she shivered below him. He dragged his thumb over her clit then adding a bit of a fancy curve he'd figured early enough into dating Elena that drove her mad with each harsh thrust. She squeaked lightly with surprise before his name began to drop from her mouth like a prayer and the furrow reappeared on her brow with a much less sinister origin as Sirius felt all the muscles in his body tense with each rapid strong movement.

"You can come now if you like." he groaned brokenly over here but she was already gone, her whole body racked with unpredictable pleasure as her hips shifted upwards unrelentingly, losing all rhythm as her body reacted of its own accord, her mind completely lost to the ear splitting bliss that caused her to cry out desperately as Sirius followed her quickly into climax as her muscles clamped down heavily around him causing his restraint to eventually break and his balls to tingle with the after effects of the long held off mind blowing orgasm. He was deeply shaken, physically shattered and impossibly elated as he fell to the side of Elena and kissed her throat mumbling God knows what against her silken skin. She giggled again making him smile at how perfect she was;

"Sirius, do you have a semi?" she asked, her body and voice still trembling from a job quite marvellously well done. Sirius sighed deeply as he ran a hand over stomach;

"I don't know, something about unGodly sex just gets me going." he mumbled as he nipped her neck lightly and she shook her head as she tried not to disturb her deliciously aching muscles with more laughter.

"Having a great orgasm?" she asked disbelievingly; "having a great orgasm gets you hard?" she pressed as he nuzzled against her boob, she began to run a hand through his perfect black hair. He blew a raspberry over her nipple making her squirm and laugh. "prat!" she cried and he grinned against her skin puckered skin as he watched her sigh. He wondered why she sometimes looked so sad.

"Is that not normal?" he eventually asked dryly and she shrugged.

"Well I'm sure a physician would question it but I actually get it all the time. Although I must admit of all the men you are especially insatiable." she stretched leisurely and he blew a puff of air over her raspberry making her belly flip lightly.

"Ah yes all your other fiancés, so how about it then?" he asked smirking lasciviously up at her, thoughts of the non sexual variety flying from her head even as his keenly observant mind took in a flash of guilt stutter across her face before she smiled like one would at a child after a third ice cream.

"No," she pulled his hand to her mouth and kissed it before laughing to herself and wrapping her mouth around his finger softly and running her tongue along the underside as she pulled it past her lips before sucking her way to the top and releasing them with a pop; "that's enough cardio for one day I think." as Sirius watched her dazedly and she rolled out of bed, stretching again, perhaps a little showily. She walked toward the ensuite trying her best not to look back to laugh at her fiancés face.

"Elena!" he groaned as he heard the door close behind her and wondered himself at his inability to _not _develop a hard-on when she was around. "don't make me wank over my own fiancé!" he cried as he heard her turning on her shower. He hated that he had to everything the muggle way as he considered the long walk to receive his usual post shag cigarette.

"I'm not making you wank I'm making you hard Sirius, big difference!" she cried from the bathroom before moaning lowly, he stepped out of the bed gingerly, still knackered, and pressed his ear to the door before stomping his tired foot in the sort of outrage specific to a certain breed of posh children.

"Are you getting off in there?!" he asked furiously as another breathy groan emanated from her side of the door;

"Oh Sirius." she sighed as he pressed his heated forehead against the expensive wood. "what can I say? Something about unGodly sex just gets me going, oh." and she moaned loader and he felt a desperate need to tear his hair out as stared at the simple muggle lock and knew he would have to come up with some sort of magic less explanation for charming the pathetic thing to open. He decided to try to be nicer as her damned attitude turned him on even more then her damn finger teasing routine.

"Please-" he heard the lock click and as he opened the door quickly he stared in at the empty bathroom before hearing the door slam behind him and realising she had been hiding behind the door. He heard her clambering quickly through the house and was relieved to find she had only closed the door behind her and hadn't locked it with the damnable muggle key. About to give chase he stalled for a moment when he noticed a calendar pinned to the back of the door. Stepping closer to see what was written on it he realised Elena had marked out her… feminine cycles on it.

"Gross." he muttered before noticed there had been editions made to the calendar for the pregnancy and he smiled a little wistfully before letting his smile fall and noticing a list of names on the three day stretch marked conception, his own name was written on two of the days but on the first day there were small notes made.

_Guy from raiser __(John?!)_

_Andrews_

He stared at the calendar for a moment longer until eventually he heard light foot steps returning to the ensuite and Elena peaked around the door smiling shyly.

"You don't want to play?" she asked sweetly and he cleared his throat before pointing to the list;

"What's this, love?" he asked and she stepped around the door before eyeing the grid and blushing;

"Ummm, well that's what I use to keep track of things, you know, feminine issues. I mean, I haven't changed the month because um, well I haven't needed too." she pulled it off the door; "you don't really want to know about all that." she placed the calendar face down on the counter by the sink before picking up a brush and turning to him. Biting her lip she began to run the brush through the ends of her hair, she shook her head;

"Gosh, I'm totally mortified." she remarked before bustling past him into the bedroom; he hadn't moved since she had entered and he moved to take the counter from the sink; "please leave it Sirius, I'm embarrassed enough as it is." she cried part amused part sheepish before pulling the calendar out of his hand. He held it firm for a moment, just long enough to read it again.

_Guy from raiser __(John?!)_

_Andrews_

To other names, two names that weren't his own under the heading conception, other men. He stared at her, she held the calendar to herself and cleared her throat before turning to the current month and glancing up at him momentarily.

"Sirius can you leave for a moment a need to use the loo." he cleared his throat and watched her small feet fidget on the damp floor.

"I'll put the kettle," he muttered and she cleared her throat, a little light coming into her eyes, light like relief before she dropped her towel;

"and maybe some clothes on too?" she enquired eyeing him up and down.

"No promises." he winked, the air felt lighter, he left the suffocating room and headed for the kitchen. He was being paranoid, he decided, he still wasn't used to such a committed relationship. Still as he heard the kettle boil he stared at his dark leather satchel on the side of the table before walking to it and opening it. Inside, in a sealed compartment, were some vials. He took out a low grade truth serum, she was a muggle it would be enough. Just a bit, just to check. He bit the inside of his cheek as he stared at it. Just for now, while he was still so unused to loving someone. Just for while he was still afraid of actually having his heart broken, of falling into a black depression, in to a Black depression, just from losing her. This once, he tipped a drop into her tea and pulled on a pair of slacks and a shirt before running his hands through his hair. No one would know, and he wasn't even going to find anything out. There was nothing _to_ find out, he was almost sure of it.

He put the vial back in his bag and went to grab some milk. He knew he couldn't stay in bed with Elena all day any way, he had told Remus to meet him at this address, he had told him that they would get an early dinner with a friend of his, he didn't know why he hadn't told Remus, but he still worried that it was some quiet Black snobbish part of him that didn't want to admit that he was marrying a muggle, a part of him that didn't quite want to accept the reality of it, the reality that would be oh so apparent as soon as he saw the look on James face. Sure James had married a muggle born, but Lily was still a witch, Elena thought Witches were just warty characters in story books. Remus would be easier to tell, he would tell him first. Remus wasn't a pureblood, he had never seen a look like he had feared from James even brush his features. Never in his life, not even when he had suggested attending the muggle college. Moony would come through on this one, he knew he would.

**A/N: Oh gosh, do you feel that storm brewing. Jeepers Creepers!**

**Thanks for reading and please PLEASE review!**


	8. Broken Heart

**Chapter 8**

**Broken Heart**

Remus fidgeted with his watch and glanced back at his empty cup of tea. He sat alone in a small café in his tweed coat and was feeling apprehensive. He was almost late, he would have to apparate most of the way to make it on time, although after his faux pas with Anne when she had seen him performing magic he had been less then eager to start apparating in muggle areas he had still let time tick on instead of taking a muggle bus when he knew one was due twenty minutes earlier just as he had moved inside and ordered his tea. He was procrastinating. He knew in his heart that no matter how good a liar Elena was there was no fooling Sirius, he was well aware that the aloof detachment with which his black haired friend interacted with the world was a farce. Sirius couldn't help but observe things he shouldn't, his curiosity always led him into peoples skeleton cupboards. He was like a blood hound for betrayal and it made Remus more nervous then he cared to admit. He bit his lip and rose from his seat, dropping some meagre muggle coins onto the table top, the leather strap of his watch itched on his arm as he had charmed it to remind him of appointments. He felt an urge to put his head between his knees and groan loudly but instead he just sighed a little wearily and made for the address Sirius had given him.

He quickly found a place to apparate at the edge of the tea shop down a side street and as he walked briskly through the posh suburban maze Remus wondered how long exactly Sirius had intended to keep the engagement from him. He tried thinking of how to act suitably surprised, should he say he had met Elena before? Should he simply not go and feign illness? Well that wouldn't do, though he may have been incomparably foolish, the werewolf still prided himself on not being a coward. He arrived through a back gate entrance to the fine estate before approaching Elena's independent wing of the house with dizzy thoughts. Two knocks, two minutes and Sirius was at the door looking drawn, turning to face front after casting a dark look over his shoulder, he pressed his lips together and focussed on Remus;

"Not really the best time mate, any chance of a rain check?" Sirius asked as he bit the inside of his cheek. Remus cleared his throat, twice, before speaking;

"Is everything ok?" he asked carefully and Sirius looked away, staring at the inside of the door frame.

"No." came Elena's voice from inside and Remus heard the tremor in her voice, of fear and uncertainty;

"What's going on?" Remus asked automatically and frowned his own lack of tact as Sirius grumbled;

"Bloody later Moony." and Elena's voice rang out once more.

"We were just having tea and then I couldn't stop confessing to all sorts of things, I can't keep in secrets. I feel as if I have lost control, even right now listen to me babble. I'm so very sorry." she sounded afraid and Sirius's expression darkened as he met Remus's disapproving gaze; any wizard who wasn't completely ridiculous knew how to recognise the effects of a truth serum and Elena's unwilling confessions and the cool detached note to her trembling voice said it all.

"Did you spike her tea Sirius?" Remus asked sharply and Sirius rolled his eyes before marching away from the door and chucking himself gracefully in a chair beside Elena who was no staring at Sirius with an unbidden look of betrayal, even in there stormy moods they cut a fine picture in the open plan parlour, Sirius, imposing, Elena, beautiful.

"So what if I did?" he spat and Elena shot up from her chair, rising to her full frail height and looking ready to blow into a tantrum;

"Sirius;" her voice shook but she didn't raise it in her obvious anger, her fists clenched, her jaw tight; "Did you drug me?" a darkness marred her features as she ran a hand along the groove of her dress which seemed to weigh on her as she stared at her fiancé as if he was a Saint who had just sold her soul to the devil at the foot of the pearly gates. Surely of the two of them she was the sinner, the heathen, yet Sirius had betrayed her in a way that made her stink of fear. It made Remus crinkle his nose, you could practically feel her throat retch with hate. He had taken away a part of her will and he didn't even seem to feel remorse as he met her gaze, his eyes equally furious.

"Don't worry Sweet heart," he spat with venom from his chair as her heart visibly broke a little more; he had never talked to a girl that way before in front of Remus before, though she of course, quite deserved it he reflected. He hated what this had become. "it'll wear off soon and you can go right back to whoring around and coming home to lie about it." he rose unexpectedly to his feet andtowered over her; she flushed with fear before glancing at Remus who stood frozen in the door which he had just shut gently behind him as he was feeling the calm before a storm washing over him. Sirius looked from him to Elena's helpless expression;

"Remus?" she asked shakily and he shook his head quickly but Sirius's posture redoubled and contorted with rage;

"What's he got to do with it?" he yelled but Remus knew he already knew before Elena even opened her mouth and uttered;

"It was only once." a tear fell down her cheek and Sirius span and gawked at Remus as his skin drained to a sickly pale and he landed heavily in his chair putting his head in his hands;

"I think I'm going to be sick." Sirius groaned. Elena began tearing up further and reaching out toward Sirius but not daring to touch him.

"Padfoot-" he began but was cut off by Sirius;

"Don't." he hissed and shook his head as he dropped his hands and stared at the tile panelled floor; "I don't believe this." and something in Remus bristled unexpectedly at the dismissive statement as he stepped forward and scoffed drawing the attention of the room.

"Oh please Sirius, stop playing the victim!" he put a hand up to stop Sirius from talking as he continued; "Nothing would have happened between me and Elena if you had just been honest with me about her in the first place, you might want to start reflecting on your own deceptions before you start forcing the truth out of other people against their will."

"Bit rich, eh Moony? You have your fair share of secrets if I'm not mistaken?" Sirius sneered and Remus became stiff;

"That's different." his tone measured and cold but Sirius didn't seem to notice;

"Is it really?" Sirius goaded and Remus narrowed his eyes,

"Why didn't you tell us?" Remus asked quietly as he noted Elena seemed to be far away as her watery eyes fixed on the wall and her lip trembled; "How long have you been engaged to her?"

"That's not the point, you-" but Remus shook his head and pressed on;

"Why?" and Sirius stared at the ground and mumbled, making Remus sure he had Sirius cornered;

"Sirius.." he began warningly but the aristocratic mans posture suddenly seemed to wane under an unseen pressure as he met Remus's eye for just a moment with a pitiful look;

"I was ashamed Moony." and he tugged at his sleeve "I couldn't help it, I though of how I had always expected my marriage to be and suddenly I thought of my family and I just," he stared at the beautiful cruel women who seemed to have checked out as he finished; "I was ashamed."

"You're ashamed of me Sirius?" Elena seemed to have returned from her trance like state and had turned with an open vulnerability to address Sirius and he sneered contemptuously again,

"Well I bloody am now, you're supposed to be marrying me remember? Not shagging my best friends."

"Remus and I didn't sleep together if that's what you think. It wasn't an affair of intimacy." she hissed and Sirius laughed obtusely before turning to Remus;

"Did you kiss her?"

"I'm sure I did," he replied coolly, feeling nothing for Sirius in that moment but a malice as he watched him manipulate Elena's psyche without even thinking about it. "its not like I took notes of the encounter." he pressed and Sirius gritted his teeth.

"And a kiss isn't intimate?" he retorted as Elena brushed her hand over her mouth subconsciously. Her red chiffon dress rustling with her movements,

"Well its certainly not sex." Remus remarked making Elena flinch.

"And I suppose a kiss isn't enough to break someone's heart?" Remus was in no mood for melodrama as Sirius said this, he crossed his arms over his gut as Sirius stormed out and Elena looked ready to break as she placed a hand across her fore head and grimaced as if the whole world was tumbling down on her.

The door clicked open and almost instantly Elena had broken from her phone position and was making her way to the door. Remus shook his head and stepped back out over the threshold to see something he hadn't expected.

Sirius held Anne close enough to curl her against him as he pressed a kiss soundly on her lips quickly retrieving a response from her as her body seemed to fall against. Remus couldn't stop staring at where her mouth touched the lips of his brother in everything but blood and wondered as he felt his heart squeeze if he had been bordering on in love with Anne Chalk. The bewitching individual whose twin sister had physically fallen to her knees and pressed her shaking head in her hands as she chanted;

"You don't understand, you don't understand.." he tears falling on the grass. When Sirius eventually wrenched his mouth from Anne's she looked completely woozy as she stared the animagus's mouth for a moment before looking about ready to cry as Sirius turned to Elena and asked with nothing but fiery malice;

"How about now? Do you understand? Is your heart broken now?" and as Elena dragged her sodden face up long enough to stare at her sister and cry out an;

"I'm sorry." it was almost hard to hear the always articulate and stiff response Anne delivered as she said;

"Thoroughly. Thanks for asking." Before stumbling to put some space between them and stepping toward Elena and helping her up. Soothingly rubbing her back as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Remus could here her heart hammer at a screaming pace as her sister pulled out of her grasp and stumbled forward to a seething Sirius, her face glistening with tears as she swung her arm up unexpectedly and let her hand clap satisfyingly across his face. His jaw dropped as his head turned with the force and Elena, to everyone's shock, spat at his feet,

"Keep your hands off my sister you cock!" she cried before storming to her front door and facing outward again; "and all of you get out of my sight."

She slammed the door forcefully and in Elena's dramatics Sirius almost missed the single tear mapping its way down Anne's sun kissed cheek before she casually wiped it off on her shirt sleeve.

**A/N: THANKYOU so much for reading!**

**And thank you for any support offered.**


	9. Revelation

**A/N: This fic is going to be short enough I think, if anyone cares. Thanks for all the support so far!**

**It means EVERYTHING!**

**Chapter 9**

**Revelation**

"Anne?" Sirius asked confused as Remus stared at the closed door. Anne felt all the emotions of the last few weeks weigh at her skull as Sirius said her name and pulled at the edge of her sleeve for a moment before running through the small space between them and pulling him down to her with a hand at the back of his neck. When his eyes were level with hers she stared into the stormy gaze and frowned.

"Mr. Black I must ask you to never do a thing like that again no matter how many of your friends Elena sleeps with." and as she began to move away her caught her elbow to keep her still, he looked jarred, shocked.

"Did everyone know but me?" he asked and Anne smiled and laughed a little bitterly;

"You didn't know?" she asked before slipping from his grasp and moving toward the main house shaking her head wearily. He had kissed her and it had meant nothing, she tried to convince herself. It meant nothing, her feelings. Her heart ache. They were nothing.

"Ms. Chalk?" it was Remus, he was calling after her, what could he possibly want? She wondered and she turned around incensed at being stopped when she was clearly suffocating under the weight of unrequited love for a man who wasn't even loved by the woman who kept him from her. Her own sister.

"What could you possibly want Lupin?! I am dismantled, I am humiliated, the only person who is more of a joke than I am is him!" she pointed a furious finger at Sirius who looked taken aback and her face softened as her heart gave a pang and her finger receded and she stared into his eyes as she followed it softly; "and I'm in love with him." they stared at each other and her resolve hardened as he showed no reaction to her weighted confession. "So what is it you wanted to say? What do you want me to say?" she turned back to Remus, waiting for his reply but he just shook his head and became still. Sirius broke form then, paced forward and grabbed Anne's wrist.

"Does Elena know about your…" he paused; "feelings?" he asked seeming to find a phrase that both acknowledged and denied the presence of love. His hand burned her arm, she felt shame and disgust for everything and stared at the ground.

"Evidently." she mumbled and Remus stepped forward, both hands raised as if to tame a wayward animal, as if he knew something Sirius was about to do that would be unpredictable to anyone else.

"Sirius, just stop." but a manic smile spread across the pure bloods mouth as he pulled Anne toward the house.

"Stop what Remus? Doing something thoughtful and cruel?" he laughed and let the implication hang as he kicked squarely at the door, one, the hinges rattled, twice, they loosened, he lifted his foot a again and the door swung open, Elena stood in the door way looking harried as Sirius quickly barrelled by her and through to the bedroom dragging Anne along;

"Black you absolute scoundrel unhand me-" he dragged her forward as Elena stared on indignantly and began yelling again;

"Sirius what are you doing? Why are you behaving like this?" she faced his manic grin and he laughed at her shock and Anne looked around for something heavy to hit him over the head with as he laughed at her fool of a sister. Remus entered the house for the second time that day feeling increasingly weary.

"Why?" he laughed as Remus clutched his wand in his pocket and Elena gritted her teeth.

"Would someone please get him off of me?!" Anne pleaded as Sirius continued unrelentingly;

"Because my wife is a mud blood slut and my kids not mine!" and Sirius tugged Anne passed Elena into the obnoxiously large study and jammed a chair under the door handle to block them in and keep the others out. On the other side of the door Elena pulled at the handle and realised what Sirius had done as she shook and clawed at the handle with futile vigour;

"no, no, no, please, Sirius my love, please." her pleading barely reached the other side of the muffled door which Remus ran toward, hitting it with jarring pressure as he attempted to blow through. When his attempt failed he kicked at it again, his expression grim and determined,

"let her out Sirius." he warned, wondering how many more times he would attempt to knock the wood from its frame manually before revealing his wand to Elena. Inside the tastefully decorated room, the pair were oddly still and quiet. Once escaping Sirius's grip Anne had rolled over the top of the table in the middle of the room, gripping the centre piece as she did so and now stood on the other side of the hard wood holding a heavily gilded rather heavy candelabra staring Sirius down as he smiled maniacally, the tension crackled. The panic outside banging loudly but the large oak door was secure and Anne knew it. She knew the room well however and was well aware that there was a servants entrance ingrained in the far wall if she could simply reach it before Sirius blocked that as well.

He shifted slightly to the left and Anne quickly mirrored his movement, taking caution to keep the sturdy desk between them as she weighed her weapon in her hand.

"What do you intend to do with that?" he asked dangerously and she felt her mouth pull at the sides a little as she bobbed on her feet.

"Hit you with it as hard as I can if you get to close." she answered concisely and he laughed roughly.

"I'm not so sure." he responded and she narrowed her eyes as he leaned over the desk and she held the end of the metal with two hand as she balanced the cool silver against the side of Sirius's temple threateningly. He only smiled wider;

"Get sure." she advised and tried to ignore the way the light danced in his eyes.

"You know Remus wants you." Sirius announced like a dirty secret on the play ground and Anne snorted like she was prone to do, though it was ill advised.

"You know I want you." she pointed out as she, in a bitter way, revelled in being able to say it to him at last. These little truths coming to light, it was fulfilling, a relief in a pit of sick shame. She wondered how Elena had landed her in the middle of one of her famous scandalous maelstroms, she remembered the last secret she had known Elena was keeping, the affair she had with one of her many suitors. She wondered if there were any real secrets aside from the secret that everyone knew the truth, everyone but Sirius. Like he didn't know the rules. Like he was only born yesterday. It made her love him even more. His strange purity, his I'll informed naivety, then again, she had lied, she hadn't known, Elena had hid it well. Anne thought this time would be different, that the engagement would change things. The pregnancy.

"Yes." he smirked, but he spoke as if his mouth had gone dry. He lent further over the table and Anne brought the candelabra to rest to the side of her shoulder, prepared to swing.

"I'm sorry." Anne whispered as she saw the heart break in his movements, as she knew these acts of desperation would change nothing, and that it was true her sister was a slut and her fiancé a cockerel.

"So am I." Sirius whispered, the tension in him broke and the grin slipped from his face as Anne saw the fight fail him. She dropped the candelabra onto the floor with a thunk and placed hand onto the table hopping it easily before balancing on Sirius's side with her legs dangling off the edge. He moved toward her then and she caught his tears on her shoulder as he hugged her tight against him. She ran a hand through his hair and shushed him. The muffled calls of there companions on the other side of the bombarded door continued as he kissed her cheek and she stiffened;

"Don't." she demanded and over his shoulder she saw the chair shift as if by magic and the door swing open smoothly. Remus Lupin stood on the other side with his hand wrapped around what she remembered to be his magician wand and her eyes widened as she pushed Sirius off to reveal the sight of her sister, looking fragile with her blonde curls pinned up as elegantly as ever and her red dress fitted carefully to her figure. She slipped off the desk. Sirius only faced the side as she had turned him, his head still turned to faced down at the desk as she climbed off. Remus lowered his arm and Anne wondered if Elena had even noticed the strange occurrence as he hid his wand away in his right pocket.

"Elena," Anne began lowly, preparing to explain why she had gone from kissing to yelling at to locked in a room with Sirius Black in such quick succession but all that came out was; "You're pregnant?" and Elena burst into a new bout of tears at this and to everyone's shock caught Anne with a right hook, the slap of skin as the punch landed on her jaw shocking her twin into silence as she sneered.

"Keep your dowdy hands off my fiancé. You're pathetic." she glanced at Sirius before glaring at Anne again; betraying her twin for some indiscernible reason, to break he down perhaps? To bring her down to her level, lower even. "You are nothing, a joke." and Anne nodded before, rather hysterically, her sister stormed out the front of the house and ran toward the road. Remus watched the cracked woman go, his mouth gaping, he only registered the shuffle at his hip when it was to late. Anne stood in front of him, holding his wand and rubbing her jaw gingerly as Sirius eventually exited the study to join them.

"She's pregnant?" Anne asked again now addressing Sirius who nodded minutely before rounding on Remus;

"Is it yours Moony?" he asked venomously and Anne glanced between the two mysterious men, the men who so often carried detached airs toward the entire goings on of there society and she wondered if perhaps there was a further reason for them feeling they were so above the socialites she knew, something aside from misogynous egoism. She pointed the wand between them,

"Stop it Sirius," she pressed as she loosened her tie and stepped between them. She felt her reserve returning even as she took in her aching jaw and the fine figure Sirius cut in his leather jacket, "we are none of us perfect and Elena often complained about not knowing your friends. Perhaps if you had been less closed this could have been avoided, it wouldn't stopped Elena but I'm sure, and I bet you are as well, that it would have stopped Mr. Lupin." she pushed a part of her hair behind her ear and sat in a chair with a white wicker frame stiffly, sunlight streamed through the front door.

Remus stared at the muggle girl eyeing his wand with apprehension and Sirius stared at his friend.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Sirius asked; "why let me go on making a fool of myself?" Remus looked between them, he wondered how much Anne knew, he wondered how long Remus knew, he cursed himself for ever falling for a muggle.

"I don't know why I didn't tell you Padfoot." Remus muttered as he fiddled with one of the scuffed buttons on his coat and Sirius glanced at Anne. "I didn't want anyone to know."

"and what about you?" he asked and she glanced up at him, smiling bitterly.

"How strange it is that anyone should ever say that, what about Anne? I don't think anyone has ever stopped to ask _what about Anne? _since I put on a pair of trousers." she let her head tip back on the chair and stared up at the ceiling; "truth be told, I didn't know Black." she confessed as she shook her head, "She loved you, I thought that would be enough." the room became awkward as a draft chilled the room and Anne twirled the wand in her fingers, looking away from the two tall gentlemen.

"God I hate new money." she groaned making both the men turn to her, a little alarmed. She could steal feel the sting of her sisters betrayal but her thick wall was already reforming, protecting her, hiding her.

"Where did you two even come from?" she continued as Sirius cleared as constricted throat.

"The two of you walk around, the young and eligible young men of the castle, I hope you don't mind me asking but who are you? What are you running in our circles for anyway? Who died and made you such a big deal, eh, Black?" she turned to Lupin and smiled wryly; "and you Remus, do you even have money, I mean, Black stinks of it a bit, but you? How are you in the castle, did you magic your way in?" she waved the wand and continued on her tirade. "or did you get some sort of poor boy scholarship?" she goaded and Sirius stepped forward;

"Right that's it." he warned gruffly rolling up his sleeves as he approached Anne but predictably Remus caught him. She heaved a sigh.

"She is just-" Remus began but Sirius cut across;

"You don't need to take that from likes of her!" Sirius sneered and Annes head flipped forward so fast she felt her neck pop as she caught Sirius with a sharp stare.

"What makes you think you are any better then me Black?" she quizzed and Remus caught Sirius with a similar look;

"Don't-" but Sirius was already gone;

"Oh you have no idea." Sirius hissed and suddenly he had pulled his wand from his pocket and he had it trained on Anne who rose from her seat in triumph;

"I knew it! It was nothing to do with me being a woman is it, its something else, what are you?" she asked and then she looked at Remus, her eyes alight, "or have you already told me." and at this point Remus rolled his eyes for only then did Sirius realise how thoroughly he had been fooled by the sly woman, it was like he always though, she was most definitely a Slytherin.

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Please let me know what you think and review!**


	10. Meantime

Remus breathed a deep sigh as Sirius gaped disbelievingly at the angular and rather plain smug looking woman before him. She stood from her chair and Remus pressed his hand more insistently against Sirius's shoulder.

"We should wipe her memory." Remus announced and Sirius nodded before turning to Remus;

"I'm hopeless with memory charms." he confessed and Anne panicked a little, clearing her throat before speaking;

"What about the baby? What will you do?" Anne asked and Sirius turned and glared at her.

"It's probably not even mine!" he yelled and Anne bit back;

"Well you will just have to wait and see then won't you? And what about the meantime?" she fixed her jaw and crossed her arms, feeling protective of her traitor of her sister, remembering as she often did why she could never stop loving her sister. The simple memory of how Elena had looked as a child made it impossible for Anne to be angry at her, the foundation of hours spent together, sharing everything, practically as one. "You need to support her, added stress is not good for a pregnancy Black, you promised to marry her, you have to work this out." Sirius looked at her as if she was mad and Remus stood oddly detached by the side. He could not make any sense of Anne, he wondered if she felt anything true for Sirius, if she felt anything true for anyone, her passion seemed so fickle. He wondered if she could truly fire it at will or if it existed independently of her heart. Choosing its own cause.

"Work this out?" he roared and Anne didn't yield; "Work this out?" he repeated as he clenched his hand tighter around his wand and Remus wished he had his own to subdue Sirius's volatility. As it was, he was unarmed.

"For better or worse." Anne articulated and then she carefully placed Remus's wand down on one of Elena's expensive Corinthian end tables and stared in to Sirius's eyes, she would cry as soon as she left, but not in front of him or anyone else. "If she doesn't marry she'll be ruined, and I don't care if you think you are above this world because of what you are, you came in of your own free will and you are playing our game now. A human game and you can erase as many memories as you like but there is one thing that no amount of wand waving can change and that is that you fucked a woman and now she's having a kid. Be a grown up Sirius, this isn't a fairy tale." and she cast a look at Remus before she turned to leave but before she could she heard Sirius laugh.

"You should take some of your own advice Annie," he laughed as he watched her posture stiffen and tried to deny the sting of shame he felt at being so thoroughly but in his place. "from what I have seen you are always breaking the rules of your little game. You act like you are above it more then I ever have." and he felt his ego improve a bit as he knew he was right and Anne crossed her arms and lowered her head as she walked away.

"If I find a way out I'll let you know." she spoke quietly, not caring if he heard her or not but feeling lead footed as she walked and Remus heard but didn't listen as he was to busy carefully tugging memories and speculation from Anne's mind with the seamless practice a man of secrets had when practicing memory charms. That night she would sleep deeply and the next morning Sirius and Remus were just men again and there were no wands in their pockets or spells in there heads. She dressed automatically in green slacks and a denim shirt before proceeding to the bathroom to splash water onto her face and try and remember the past days events.

"Bugger." she muttered to her reflection as she saw a bruise blushing her skin where Elena had struck her.

"Sweet Elena, my sweet girl." she whispered shaking her head. She didn't know how it had digressed to this, what had broken Elena, what had corrupted her. Anne observed herself, her plain featured face and short mop of curls, her eyes at least had appeal but those of course she had to share with Elena and where as Elena's were set round and wide in her face Anne's were thin and cynical by comparison. But blue, soft boundless blue. Something they shared, something of balance, screaming of there true nature. The soft socialite Elena was truly distant and sceptical where as in the soul of her eyes, Anne was vulnerable and lonely. It was one of the things Anne observed with her illustrious poetic internal perspective went ironically over looked by even the closest of there friends. They only knew each other, her and her sister, or at least that was what Anne had thought and what she realised now as she stared down the mirror, was what she had been banking on.

"Today perhaps, will be different." Anne whispered to herself before mopping the last of the water she had splashed her face from her chin and dapping her damp eye lashes.

When Anne climbed aboard her bicycle she immediately felt more assured. She would cycle to the college and she would go to the library and she would get ahead on assignments and all would be as it had been, as it should be. But of course, she glanced over to Elena's cottage at the base of the estate, she would not. She would not got her sister. She would go to her beloved, she would have to find Sirius Black and make sure then he married Elena. Otherwise nothing would ever be right.

"But I love him." she whispered to the air as she stared at the drawn curtains in her sisters house before setting off to find the forbidden love of her life. It wasn't difficult, in fact she doubted she could even really call it a search, he was roaring toward the main gate of the estate on his beautiful black bike just as she had pedalled down on her push bike which she had painted yellow. She veered out of his path and allowed him to pass

"Wow." she exclaimed as she realised her poor calculating; due to the considerable speed she had built from the slanted drive she found that before she could think of much else to do but tuck her head in to the crook of her arm she was thrown over the handle bars. She hit the ground with enough momentum to roll twice before stopping and the moments relief was easily broken by the bikes following her and catching over her legs. She took a deep breath and lay still, she was shaking, flooded with adrenalin, her leg shook under the bike, she hoped it was just bruised as that was how it felt but she wondered if the pain would worsen when the adrenalin wore out. Her thought sharp and primal from the shock she was on her feet within a moment, lugging the bike with her she moved off the expensive drive to the grassy edges and sat down carefully she lay the bike beside her, the front tyre buckled, she would have to buy a new one.

It was at this point that Sirius had pulled his bike up to a desired point and pulled off his helmet only to see Anne, pale as he had ever seen her with her head between her knees at the end of the road.

"Oh shit." he hissed as he threw his helmet aside and ran toward the bottom of the hill as if hell was at his heels.

"Anne?" he called when half way down the drive and she lifted a shaking hand to gesture vaguely as his feet pattered clumsily to kill the speed he had built running down the hill. He was on his knees beside her, hands hovering over her, afraid to touch as he reached for each stiff limb.

"Anne?" he repeated and he eventually reached forward and brushed her hair away from her face gingerly. Her blues eyes focused on him tetchily as she reached for his hand and pushed it away from her head before placing it on the ground.

"Good thing I wasn't wearing a dress my skin would be torn to bits." she relinquished his hand and brushed her hair out of her face with her own shaking one. "I suspect I'll bruise quite badly." she muttered and Sirius's mouth went dry, he cleared his throat;

"I'm sorry." he told her and she looked at him again looking startled. She removed her hand from her hair to show two fingers scarlet with blood.

"I was going to say not to worried about it but I think instead you should take me to A&E" she told him a little to loudly, still jarred, her body still in shock. The pain from her head injury eventually beginning to emanate through her skull as she felt her hair becoming damp with blood.

"Oh fuck I'm so-" he began but she cut across, a tremor forming in her voice;

"Now Sirius!" she demanded and he eventually sprung into action;

"Right," he said as he scooped an arm under her shoulder and when she nodded helped her to her feet; "right." he repeated quietly as she fell against him and her weight deadened. Sighing after realising she had fainted he laid her carefully on the grass and after casting a glance around he performed a few basic healing charms. He frowned as he became aware that he couldn't heal her completely without modifying her memory and considering that he was bad at them even at the best of times he knew that performing a memory charm on a muggle two days in a row when they were suffering from a concussion had the potential to be completely disastrous. He pointed his wand at her chest and frowned at her lightly freckled unremarkable face for a moment. He really didn't know what Remus saw in her but then again Remus had at least taken the time to romantically pursue the more honourable of the sisters as opposed to his more simple physical pursuit of Elena. His frown deepened as he tried to cast the thoughts of his fiancés infidelity aside;

"Innervate." he murmured before tucking his wand away and he watched as in a very un-Anne like manner she looked at him;

"Sirius?" she cried, her voice hoarse and only sounding vaguely like her own;

"Who were you expecting?" he asked trying to lighten the tension a little as her behaviour, quite frankly, was freaking him out. In response she only shook her head and on the other side of the estate pulling herself up out of the tub in Elena's cottage was Anne.

She rubbed her wet hair and tried to remember how she had managed to slip in Elena's shower remembering her head ache being sourced from a very different type of fall;

"Sirius?" she called out quite quietly enough to avoid jarring her head and as there was no response she decided he was not near by. "Flaky arrogant sycophant…" she groused as she eased herself up from the tub and crossed the room to the sink to inspect her head injury.

Then there was a rather speedy process during which she decided something wasn't right. Firstly, she was to short as she looked around the familiar room, then as she looked down at the ground that was to close to her and she saw that her body was not her own, unless she had some how miraculously traded about a foot and a half of her height for boobs. At this point her heart began hammering very hard in her chest as she bit into her lip. Stealing herself she turned toward a tasteful blue framed mirror pinned to the wall and her hands flew to her mouth.

"Oh God." she muttered as she stared at herself through her sisters face; "Elena?" she whispered in the foreign yet familiar voice before being pulled from her reverie by her own calling her or rather sister from the other side of the house.

"Elena?" it called sounding unsure and pulling a robe from the back of the door she slipped it on and emerged into the lounge where both Sirius and her body stood, she cleared her throat;

"Anne?" she asked and a moment of understanding past between them before Anne, occupying Elena's body, turned to Sirius;

"Get out of here Sirius." she hissed and he looked as if he was about to protest but Anne, doing her best impression of Elena raised her chin slightly; "I won't hear it," she announced as she placed her hands on her hips. "please?" she asked and seeing the softening look in his eye as he stared through to her as Elena hurt, to be really looked at by him, with love, but this way was beyond confusing. This was fast becoming a terrible nightmare.

"Right." he said like he always did and never loosing the posture of attack in his volatile posture he turned toward the door and stalked out, slamming the door behind him;

"Such form." Elena muttered admiringly from Anne's body causing the true Anne to roll her eyes.

"Elena?" she asked quietly and her own tall gangly frame turned to her;

"Yes Anne?" she asked with all the stoicism she could muster as she rubbed a hand over her stiff injured leg;

"What are we going to do?" she pleaded and the confidence fell away from Elena as it only ever did around Anne and she shook her head as she felt she had gone completely mad staring at her sister inside herself;

"I don't know." was all she could manage as she fell back onto one of the fine wicker sun chairs and allowed her head to loll back as Anne began to plait her sisters long hair. It was strange, Anne hadn't had long hair since before she had finished school but she slipped into the old habit with ease. "But we'll figure it out, don't worry." and as she collapsed in the chair next to her sister, the two of them nursing there heads and trying to work out what was going on she took the other womans hand, her own really and she believed her, feeling more like her sister in that ridiculous moment then she had done in years.


	11. Promises

_Anne is in Elena's Body and Elena is in Anne's body_

They sat in silence at first, reflecting on the ceiling, waiting to wake up from whatever concussed fantasy they were caught in. Anne coughed, preparing to break the silence but Elena knew instinctively what she was going to ask and answered before she began;

"It was everything Anne, the way you look at him with your eyes wide like they used to be when Dad let you climb trees and even the way you complained about his points in your classes." she said classes with a bit of bite then made Anne frown on her sisters pouting mouth. Still, she wanted to know how she knew, who else knew. "Everything he said struck a debate in you, had it been anyone else you wouldn't have cared enough to be upset. You would have known better, he swiped your senses, you were defenceless in your passion."

"Then-"

"Because I couldn't stand to see you hurt the way I had been. Better reject him on the basis of your loyalty then be rejected by him on the basis of his." and Anne wasn't sure what she meant by this, classic cryptic Elena.

"His loyalty to what?" she asked and her sister turned to face her. It was like looking in a mirror as her own voice spoke. As if she had suddenly developed an uncanny ability to take on her sisters manner flawlessly.

"To his persona." she finished, knowing men like him how she did, but she had learned since she had truly engaged with Sirius that he was different to most of the others. In many ways he truly detested anything formal or clinical, yet Elena hated to admit to anyone, even herself, it was a jealously guarded secret. For how could she excuse coveting him away from Anne if it was not for her own good as she so often promised to herself. Her moral excuse for what on some level was a selfish act.

"Oh." Anne muttered and her stomach twisted. "I feel ill." she admitted and Elena gave her hand a small squeeze.

"Morning sickness." she explained and Anne groaned, sitting forward to put her head in her hands.

"Elena, I have gone mad." Anne confessed feeling as if the absurdity of the situation might be broken by admitting it out loud.

"Anne breath deeply and look at me." she turned to her sister who lent forward, her limbs blissfully free of the exhaustion that had come with pregnancy, "this is happening." she stated, resolved to it. Anne stared at her with an expression of terror she recognised on her own face from the more horrible times.

"Ok." Anne whispered and Elena pulled her small frame into her arms feeling her eyes prickle at the feeling. Anne had long out grown her though for a time Elena was the larger of the two, now she held Anne fully in a way that by natures standards should truly have been lost to them.

"We should see a doctor." Anne whispered and Elena shook her head.

"We mustn't tell anyone." she said sternly. "No one will understand, we must wait, things will return to normal Anne, I promise." she rubbed her sisters back but Anne shook her head.

"What is so great about normal," she pulled away from her sister, strangely comforted to be near her smell anyway as she continued to settle into the foreign body with unsettling rapidity despite the ache in her sisters joints. "I don't know if you have noticed but everything had gone to shit." Elena frowned;

"Don't curse Anne it's unbecoming." but Anne just rolled her eyes.

"What if Sirius leaves you?" Anne asked bluntly and Elena felt her shoulders slump but said;

"There are other concerns. We need to find a way to carry on so that when what ever is happening stops happening we haven't ruined each others lives." Anne then sat up straighter and turned to look at her sister;

"You can't mean…" Elena shrugged and Anne flew up from her chair aggravating her nausea but not really caring, not her nausea, her sisters nausea from her sisters baby in her sisters body.

"Oh God." Anne cried as she fell out of the shocked denial of her cool state and backed away from her sister as hysteria crept into her psyche, Elena already knew what was going to happen as she reached out to her twin to try and calm her but the girl had already high tailed it for the door opening it with a flourish and turning to face her sister on the threshold. "Don't fail my mid-terms!" she demanded loudly as if she had just realised this situation could impact her education and then she screwed up her face in frustration and ran out of the house in Elena's best bath robe which she was, for once, not to tall for.

"Don't ruin my wedding." she muttered back as she wondered if she should go and have her leg seen to.

* * *

After being cast out once again by Elena Sirius rode around on his bike dejectedly, he frowned as he remembered Anne's shaky insistence on standing and going to see Elena. Insisting that he leave, that she would talk to her sister alone and that she was sorry for what Elena had done. She had said this with a look of such guilt he reassessed her affirmations that she hadn't known all along. She had touched him more in that short walk across the paved garden paths then she had since he had first met her. Initially holding out her hands for him to help her up which had seemed strange in itself along with her brushing dust off his coat before they entered Elena's he wondered what had brought on the change. Elena, Elena had looked stricken. He frowned under his helmet as he arrived at the Castle, easily anticipating Remus's sitting in the library with his head tucked in some muggle history tome or another. He always smelt of dust and earth, eroded and drifting.

Remus heard him coming, he really had found a deep part of the library to tuck into but it didn't seem to have done him any good as Sirius popped his head around the corner of one of the shelves concealing the stool her had found.

"Do you think she ever loved me Moony?" Sirius asked him and he pressed his mouth in to a thin patient line. Sirius did have a knack for making himself the priority.

"Have you forgiven me again then?" he asked, Sirius had sent him a howler that morning on what Remus guessed, had been on one of his fitful impulses. He appreciated that he had not come to deliver the message in person. Sirius didn't even bother looking sheepish he just rolled his eyes;

"Not still going on about that are you? You said yourself it was only a little head." Remus felt a head ache coming on before he eventually surrendered and closed his book. It was badly written anyway, a weak unoriginal critique of Tacitus. "What do I do Remus?" Sirius pressed and the werewolf stretched out his creaking legs as he reclined with his back against the wall, oak shelves towering over them on both sides.

"First you might want to keep it down. We are in a library after all." Sirius frowned but nodded turning to leave and gesturing for Remus to follow, the thin man acquiesced wearily until they reached a more main part of the college campus, there conversation lost amidst the buzzing square;

"I went to her today," Sirius began and Remus rubbed his eyes as they adjusted from the dim light.

"Why?" Remus asked as he squinted at Sirius in the low Autumnal sun but Sirius was clearly to busy brooding to really worry about his friends blindness.

"I don't know, maybe because she is pregnant with my kid or because we are supposed to be getting married or because I am in love with her and I want to know if maybe she might love me too?" he looked at Remus then, slightly tormented; "Does this really have to change everything?" he eventually said leaving the werewolf conflicted; did it? Countless affairs, compulsive lying, even he, the best friend had been roped into one of the petty excursions. He pulled at a loose thread at the sleeve of his woolly jumper and faced the ground as he shrugged uselessly for what felt like the hundredth time.

"What happened this morning?" he asked and Sirius turned to him, clearly looking guilty and making his friend frown;

"What did you do?" he pressed;

"Anne had an accident, I think she was concussed, she wasn't really herself afterward, anyway, she fell off her bike." he saw Remus tense; "She refused to go to hospital or anything, she seemed ok though, I guess." it was less then reassuring but he nodded anyway. Thinking of Anne, weak and shaken in the muggle emergency room made his stomach knot. Anne, a girl he barely knew but whose sharp gaze simply did something to him that he couldn't explain, she had such bite. It drew him in, and she understood what it meant to be a victim of circumstance. To begrudge a part of your own makeup. He doubted many people could empathise with her for that. He wished he was outspoken enough to make her feel less alone. Perhaps next time he saw her. He could ask about the accident, though he doubted she would talk to him, now that she knew of his and Elena's classless rendezvous.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, girl like Anne, she is athletic isn't she, I'm sure she has had falls before." Sirius was staring at him;

"You know I think I was her first kiss." Sirius said as if it wasn't meant to hurt Remus in the slightest but he was watching him so closely Remus knew that he was twisting the blade on purpose, a little resentment went a long way with the temperamental Black if he couldn't have what he wanted.

"I suppose it's possible." allowed Remus and Sirius grinned;

"Maybe she is a lesbian or something." and then he snorted, snapped Remus on the back and headed toward the door leaving him with a roaring head ache and a large amount of eye rolling to do on behalf of his friend. He really could be a vindictive arse when he wanted to, but when it really came down to it, he was a good man. Just an immature one. He went back to the library thinking of Anne, Anne, she was the innocent one caught in it all but she still suffered along with them. He thought of how she had reacted when she had figured out they were wizards. It wouldn't be long before she posed a threat to there secret again, it would really be wise to avoid both the Chalk sisters but Remus knew how these things were and there was a pattern in place now, the sort that escapism would find no resolution for.

* * *

_Anne is in Elena's Body_

Sirius was staying in the student halls of the castle and the last thing he expected to find when he returned to his room in the all male corridor was Elena wrapped in one of her illustrious furs with her hair in a plaited bun staring down the Residential Officer outside of his room.

"You listen to me," she snapped in her cultured accent at the baffled assistant; "I will not allow myself to be bossed around by the likes of you Master Thornby and if you are looking for something to tell some puffed up over zealous supervisor try "Elena Chalk is waiting to meet her fiancé in the hall and if you have a problem with it you can take it up with the Chalk families generous beneficiaries who will be happy to have both of your jobs remitted" will that do sir?!" she finished placing her hand upon her hips as if expecting a contrary answer but rather then let the conversation continue to the disadvantage of his hall rep he cleared his throat;

"Will you be wanting your ring back then?" he asked and the res officer rolled his eyes and sneered at Elena before simply handing him a red citation and barging past him back down the hall, clearly done with talking, Elena looked at him like he had never seen, with none of her usual decisive confidence but rather with a wary challenging look that seemed oddly familiar.

"Do you have it on you?" she asked and Sirius shoved the citation in his pocket and fingered the ring where it lay, feeling quite heavy.

"Do you expect me to just return it like that?" he asked. God she had hurt him, she bit the inside of her lip in a very unElena like manner and shook her head gazing at the ground.

"Lets not do this in the hallway." she suggested and she stepped out of the way to allow him to open the door. Anne in Elenas body tried not to think of what this really meant as Sirius allowed her into his room for what she wondered if she should act like was the first time. Had Elena been in here before? She simply went on as she had done, trying to do the best possible impression of her sister. She hoped Elena didn't act much different with Sirius when they were alone then she did with her for she knew well herself that she could never pull off being one of those ladies who lunch. She saw a darts board on the back of the door of the rather architecturally extravagant room and smiled.

"I'll play you for it." she mumbled in spite of herself, feeling slightly liberated and mischievous in the guise of her sister but Sirius only turned to her, an eyebrow raised. He really looked at her, never like when she was Anne. How she had longed for it;

"What?" he asked and she pulled at the hem of the coat, she wore nothing underneath, she didn't know how to dress like Elena and it was only look that Elena had left this in the main house for she would be pressed in a bathrobe otherwise, fortunately Sirius had not offered to take her coat.

"The ring, if I beat you at darts we go on as before." and Elena was terrible at darts but Anne never lost, it was her sort of game. She hadn't ever lost a bet, not once. Sirius looked half affectionate half ready to tear her head off; instead he just said;

"Elena, you can't play." to which she grinned like she wouldn't have if she was Anne and in a manner Elena was not known for either, no in that moment she was who she would have been if she didn't feel like she wore a persona like a corset, in that moment she was quite free and saving her sisters marriage;

"You're scared?" she goaded and he looked genuinely affronted;

"Never." he announced and Anne rolled her sisters doe eyes,

"Then you can go first." she announced and collected the darts from their holder on the back of the door. Finally, a game she knew the rules of.


	12. Darts and Fidelity

**Chapter 12**

**Darts and Fidelity**

_This is all Anne in Elena's body_

Sirius saw the unusual spark of challenge in Elena's soft blue eyes and snuffled a little before taking the muggle darts from her hand. Should he let her win?

"and don't you dare go easy on me." she demanded and he turned to the intuitive woman a little sharply as she cleared her throat and added; "please." sweetly in a much more Elena like fashion before gesturing for him to begin. He had never claimed to be good at the muggle game of darts but he knew himself to be a damn sight better then Elena at anything that involved hand eye co-ordination except perhaps tennis which she rarely failed to slaughter him at when they played. His first dart hit a twenty five, just off the bulls eye and he smirked triumphantly as Elena shifted beside him.

Anne shook her head minutely, men always went for the bulls eye as if it was the be all and end all but any one who took half a moment to think of it knew that the highest score was at the triple eighteen on the edge, four points more.

"Typical." she muttered as he took his second shot causing him to botch it slightly and barely make a six. He turned to her, his temper rising slightly, he was already emotionally on edge because of her. She rose her dainty hands in a mock surrender and bit her lip. The confidence that had so drawn him to her conspicuously absent and making him grouse slightly. He took his third and final shot of the small game, scoring a triple eighteen and causing Anne to lose the little bet she had with herself. For some reason her stomach took this as a bad omen and began to flip flop. Suddenly it didn't feel like such a sure thing but as Sirius pulled his dart out of the board she knew it was to late to change her mind,

"Elena?" he practically purred from behind her as she stepped in front of the dart board and a shiver ran through her is she decided how to start, one hundred and ten was not exceptional score after all.

"Yes." she answered to her sisters name, feeling strange but finding, as most humans do, that the ability of a person to adapt can be shockingly thorough as she began to whisper around in her sister skin as if she had never done anything else.

"What are you wearing under that coat?" he asked and she threw her first dart, hitting a solid fifty, as she gulped in what she personally felt, was a suspicious manner.

"I was in a rush Sirius just let it lie." but of course he wouldn't as she felt his hand slide over her thigh and flinched slightly though still managing to hit a twenty five to match his, her first dart practically kissing her second as she turned to scold Sirius. The sight of him when she turned however disarmed her, his piercing grey eyes framed in the black of his wavy hair and prominent cheek bones which made her skin flush immediately and her mouth go dry,

"Why did you come here tonight Elena?" he asked lowly and she saw her first trace of vulnerability from the imposing man as she hastily scored her triple eighteen and turned to face him once more.

"To win you back." she told him, laughing lightly as she shrugged her shoulders, for the first time since she had begun her turn he glanced at the board, expecting to see her sheepishness reflected in her play but evidently not.

"Well it would appear you have done that." he muttered and she chuckled lightly again in agreement. His eyes fell on her again, placing her under a hard heated scrutiny as she tried to find somewhere else to look.

"You laugh differently." he remarked as he took a step closer to her and pulled her roughly against him causing her to squeak rather indecently. He spoke into her ear as he pressed the engagement ring into her palm.

"Aren't you just full of surprises?" he asked as the hands of her greatest love brushed over her arm and made her feel unendingly weak until she head the presence of mind to pull back a bit. She was no traitor, not to anyone but her heart.

"I was thinking that perhaps we shouldn't have sex for a while." she managed without to much blushing as she cursed her inability to phrase the plan with tact. She pecked him on the cheek, trying to pretend she had done it a thousand times before stepping away from him. Christ, the smell of his aftershave lingered around her nose making her knees weak. She would leave, she decided. They both needed space. But he didn't relinquish his hold on her elbow.

"Then why did you come dressed like that?" he asked, his eye flowing up her figure; "what are you wearing under that?" he asked again with a wide grin pulling at the collar of her soft dark fur coat. He may not know how he felt about Elena emotionally but physically she drove him as crazy as ever.

" My underwear." she muttered. Still avoiding his eye like she would avoid the pits of hell. He groaned at this, pulling her to him again. She pressed her hands to his chest and pulled back to see his face. She would really rather do with out the inside look at Elena's life with Sirius, it was turning out quite a bit like the fiery relationship she had so jealously imagined. He looked down at her with such desire. She tried to muster up some confidence as she realised that this was how it was to be beautiful. She stared at his mouth for a moment, the mouth that had already stolen her first kiss so shortly before, and she recoiled. Not like this.

"I cant;" she whispered, searching his eyes, beseeching him to understand that which she couldn't comprehend herself. "I'm sorry, we shouldn't, till the wedding." she promised again, wondering if Elena always had this much apologising to do. Sirius seemed to deflate of his bravado as she said this and he took a small step back, loosing a strand of her hair and wrapping a finger around it;

"Will I ever be enough for you love?" he asked running a thumb along her cheek and breaking her heart, "Just me, none of the other men, could you love me Elena, like I've loved you?" Anne bit her lip as she looked up at him and the heat of his skin warmed her cheek. How she had craved his hands, obsessed over them.

"You have to believe me Sirius, that this wasn't something I did because of anything you failed to do, I just…" she broke off, she didn't know why Elena had done it and it wasn't really her place to say, but the way he looked at her broke her heart. She took a deep breath and pushed her emotions away. It wasn't her guilt to feel, just shame, shame at what her sister had done. "I'm so ashamed." she whispered and allowed her eyes to break away from his as she slipped out of the comfort of his arms. She put some distance between them in every respect, stealing her heart away as best she could.

"You should be." he hissed coldly as she stared at the expensive carpet, her posture submissive, it was like he didn't even know her. "You were supposed to be it for me," he pulled at his hair and groaned; "God you still are." he growled as he surged forward and kissed her with all his passion. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she shyly softened to the kiss, inhaling his scent and running her hands up into her hair as she whimpered. God she was his and for another moment it felt like he was hers. She was beginning to collect these moments, like a stolen and secret treasure. She hoarded it. She released a tremulous little groan as he pushed his tongue into her mouth and God help her she let him. She simply couldn't deny him, her heart hammered in her chest and her skin felt flushed as his hands moved along her waist and lifted her up onto her toes and then she gasped and broke away. The realisation of her petite form making her realise once more that this body she was in was not her own. When Sirius had kissed her just the day before for the first time the height difference hadn't even registered, in Elena's body it was much more considerable. Elena's body, Elena's fiancé, Elena's life, she was impostor, an outsider. Her mouth burned, she cheeks flushed and suddenly the memory was flashing through as twisted and unpleasant. Her stomach dropped through to the floor but she still couldn't stop panting against his mouth as he held her to him. Her heart rate refused to slow as she released one of those shaky sighs that every girl who is afraid and in love is bound to release.

"Oh Sirius." she whispered, how she loved him, she could barely keep a hold of herself as she looked at him. She tried to move away but he held her fast, his eyes darkened, he looked at her as if she had grown a second head and she cleared her throat; "is everything all right?" she quizzed him in her best Elena impression, pulling herself together just enough to mange that;

"You…" he spoke hoarsely, "just…" he was kissing her again, kissing her so softly it was almost cruel, kissing her like she had most dreamt of being kissed. His lips alternating between heady pressure and barely brushing over her own, making it impossible for her to catch her breath as she tried to convince herself to pull away. Her knees were weakened, her breath stolen as she thought she could actually feel love emanating from his every pore. Eventually he did release her and she dropped off her toes and buried her head against his chest, speech torn from her. Exhausted, it was suddenly like her whole life was divided into kissing and not kissing. Kissing Sirius, and not kissing Sirius. Almost falling apart without him there, only having him to hold her together when he was. He ran his hands up and down her back pulling the tension from her soul as she pressed her ear to his heart and listened to its rapid pace. "Aren't you going to tell me to stop treating you like you are going to break and get on with it?" he asked, a touch of humour tinting his voice in the strangest way and Anne pulled herself out of his arms and frowned up at him.

"Why would I ever do that?" she asked and then she thought of Elena and remembered that she wasn't Anne being kissed perfectly she was impatient Elena being kissed slowly. She almost wanted to scold her sister for discarding all those soft heart breakingly perfect kisses Sirius had apparently offered her.

"because…" he began and then shrugged and cleared his throat. "you're you." he finished looking confused and Anne fiddled with the edge of her soft sleeve, finding it hard to come up with words.

"I guess it can be hard to be me and be kissed like that." Anne tried to cover before looking back to Sirius, her eyes big and round and as far as Sirius was concerned more beautiful in this fragile state then he had ever seen them. "to kiss like that," she went on, "I could never betray that kiss but I don't want to covet any part of myself away from you Sirius." Anne felt tears gathering in her eyes and blinked rapidly. "Not anymore." in that moment he felt like he would have to start from scratch to get to know her and pushing away the feeling that her kisses were eerily reminiscent of a kiss he had received quite recently off of her sister, Sirius pulled her back to him.

"I understand you Elena." he muttered against her cheek, running his hand up along her arm; "fear of commitment, intimacy issues, I get it, believe me I do. I'm not proud of it but this is probably the first relationship in which I haven't been playing away." he laughed nervously against her cheek and kissed the side of her head, letting the silence linger for a moment; "I just hope you weren't doing it for the same reasons I was… because you didn't-" he cleared his throat and took her hand in his; "because you didn't really care." Anne stared at the expensively burnished panelling along the feature wall, she felt hurt but responded as kindly as she could.

"I love you." she confessed, cursing her own sincerity, she leaned up to speak against his ear and he let out a little laugh as she started to try and think of reasons to leave. She wouldn't last much longer in a room with him, not unless she intended to go home to a padded cell. "Forgive me? Marry me?" she pleaded for her sisters sake and her cheeks stung with shame as she replayed the kisses in her mind over and over. It was not like her, it wasn't even close to being like her. But a lot of things were changing, Sirius placed a hand over her belly and Anne tried to stay relaxed.

"I could never say no to you, no matter how much I want to or how much I need to." he stated, she nodded, committing it to memory so that she could put on a face of joviality when reporting it back to Elena. As if it was information it didn't break her heart to collect. "why even bother pretending to be bad at darts though?" he asked as he looked over at the board and puzzled over how terrible Elena had been when they had once played. How they had laughed at her two first shots not even reaching the board but falling about a half foot short.

"Its unfitting for a lady to have such prowess for games so typically associated with gambling." Anne rattled off easily having heard the words from Elena's mouth herself to many times to count.

"Ah." was all Sirius said and Anne tried to move out of his arms again.

"I should go." she eventually managed to say but Sirius shook his head and as she turned around and pulled her against him so that her back was placed flush against his chest.

"Because now you want to play the lady, right?" he asked through gritted teeth releasing a disturbing and familiar manic laugh into her hair;

"Sirius…" Anne let out tremulously hoping he wouldn't do anything to irrational as his hold on her tightened.

"How many?" he growled; Anne closed her eyes and felt fear pressing in on her;

"How many what?" she asked and her voice shook noticeably as he snickered again.

"How many men have you fucked while pretending you were a fucking reserved little lady?" he explained and all Anne could think to say that would sound even remotely like Elena was;

"Don't curse, its unbecoming." and suddenly Sirius pushed his hips to the base of her spine making her gasp as she felt his hard arousal pressed against her.

"You should stop teasing me." he groaned; "you know how I love it when you are being all bossy. I remember the first night we were together, what was it that you said?" he asked and let out a breath against the shell of her ear.

"I'm not sure I remember." Anne responded, her stomach in knots, her skin flushing further as she tried to push aside the confusion of her arousal and betrayal and heart ache almost enough to make her feel physically disoriented.

"You said; that if I was a man of true experience then I would undo your bra with my teeth;" Anne blushed at the explicit confession as Sirius ran a hand down to the hem of her coat, pulling his hand over her thigh; "you said fingers and thumbs should be saved for the really delicate stuff." and Anne couldn't hold in her whimper as he ran a thumb over her embarrassingly damp underwear,

"Always so wet for me." he hissed and she could see the edge of his mouth smiling as she eventually opened her eyes and turned her head slightly to the side.

"Sirius, after the wedding;" she placed hand over his and lifted it away from her; "it's important to me." she insisted and he let her slip out of his arms as she pulled away. She straightened her hair and smoothed out her coat before turning around and smiling up at him falsely, she had never been more aroused or more confused in her life. No exaggeration. He looked down at her, looking perfectly deliciously dishevelled, his pale skin carrying a light flush.

"Right well…" Anne stepped a little closer to him and pressed another kiss to his cheek; "thank you Sirius." and she all but ran out of the room leaving Sirius bewildered and incredibly turned on;

"Fuck." he cried as the door clicked behind her and the conversation replayed in his head; "Fuck!" he yelled louder and he through a lamp at the door causing it to smash against the wall. Thornby, the damn Residential assistant, opened the door just after the crash looking furious.

"Did you just smash more of this residences property?" He asked irately and Sirius deflated; "Are you fucking serious?" he pressed shaking his head and slamming the door as he went to write him up again. Sirius sat on his bed and pressed his head into his hand;

"Nobodies fucking Sirius." he pouted before pulling at his hair and sighing. He was going to have to find a way to talk to Lily, there was no way he was going to be able to organise a muggle wedding without her help.

**A/N: Thanks for reading and please review! I would REALLY appreciate it**


	13. Considerable Effort

**Chapter 13**

**Considerable Effort**

The phone rang perilously in the kitchen of the Potters cottage in Godrics Hollow as Lily Potter bounced the screaming baby Harry on her hip, her fiery ponytail brushing to her mid back bouncing in time and pleaded with him to calm down; but she knew it was futile, the infant was teething and silence was beginning to feel like a distant memory.

"shh baby please come on, just for a moment, just a second Harry darling for God sake just as much time as it takes to inhale, shouldn't all this screaming really punctuated by some breathing-" she paused her cajoling to yell loudly to the other end of the house; "James would you answer the phone for Christ sake, stop pretending you don't know how to use it I hear you ordering pizzas to made up addresses on Thursday-" she stared contemptuously in his general direction before kissing the top of her sons head; "Harry love its ok, they're only baby teeth, you only have them a few years. You don't need to grow them so perfectly the first time. James!" she called for him again with a threat in her tone. James Potter shrank in his chair, he had been daydreaming rather indulgently about what it would be like to be deaf in his study which he had affectionately renamed "the bunker" when the phone eventually cut off and he smiled to himself for a moment, running his hand through his hair in relieved celebration. Then the door thrashed open a moment later and he spun around in his muggle spinny chair with a gasp, the chair buckled and through him off as a result.

"Merlins Ball sack!" he shouted from the floor as he looked up at a beaming Lily cradling the still screaming baby. "you're smiling." he croaked from the ground before he pulled himself to his feet to smile back at her, was he not in trouble then?

"Did you get the phone?" she asked and he nodded;

"Wrong number?" he suggested hopefully and Lily rolled her eyes;

"I answered it." she informed him and he grimaced;

"Oh." he mumbled as he readjusted his glasses.

"Sirius is on the phone for you." she informed him, her voice projected over the shrieks of his teething firstborn and he gaped a little at his pale tired looking wife before he nodded and headed to get the phone. Lily didn't have much to entertain her on days like these and eagerly anticipated the look on James's face when he got the news that Sirius was going to be married within the fortnight, she stalked to watch him from the edge of the doorway not that her presents could ever be ignored with the screaming Harry in her arms, skulking was really off her agenda.

"Sirius?" James tired but contented voice floated down the line along with the keening of Sirius's Godson; "I see you figured out how to work the telephone." he remarked and Sirius laughed nervously. He didn't want his reason for calling to just fall out of his mouth like it had with Lily just moments before. He was on the phone that had come nailed down in his dorm room and there was a slight clicky noise whenever you moved it the wrong way. It rested on a ridiculous rickety little table between the fridge and the common area, Sirius stood with his back rested to the lightly humming kitchen appliance and stared at the floor. This place was really only pricey for its reputation, the rooms were always cold and smelled of tinned food.

"Yeah well, it was kind of unavoidable considering I go to a muggle school and that." he laughed again and James hmmed in agreement.

"Yeah, what's it like?" James asked and Sirius frowned;

"I'm seeing a girl." he began and James snorted;

"How unlike you." his friend teased lightly and huffed a short laugh. He sounded knackered, Sirius decided, and grimaced at the babies unrelenting screams.

"Yeah, turns out she is a bit of a harlot anyway." Sirius flinched a little as he said it, thinking of her apologies, of her shame.

"Suits you, is that what you called to talk to me about, eh Padfoot? Hardly broke your heart did she?" James asked indelicately but suspiciously close to the mark as always;

"Have you been talking to Remus?" Sirius asked a little taken aback but James leant against the counter where they kept the phone and frowned;

"No, but I'm take it that she did upset you then?" James asked and couldn't believe he was having this conversation with Sirius of all people.

"Broke my heart Prongs, we were engaged." Sirius explained and then he laughed, feeling the ridiculous smile tugging at him, lying to him. "We still are actually." he mumbled quieter and on the other end of the line for a moment all that could be heard was the child's screaming and then James sighed.

"Is she pregnant?" he eventually asked and Sirius groaned as he slid down against the fridge and curled up on the floor;

"Yeah." he confessed down the phone an James nodded, Lily may not have been pregnant when he had proposed to her but it had been a false positive that had prompted him to ask.

"Do you love her?" James asked and Lily watched with confusion as a rare sombre conversation was shared between the two friends.

"I haven't even kissed another girl since I've been with her." he said like that said it all, and where Sirius Black was concerned, it kind of did. But then he let out another one of those quiet disconcerting laughs and went on; "Well except one girl, but I was mad, I'd just found out. It was just a kiss but God it drove her up the wall." he snickered again and James blew out his cheeks;

"Some slag?" he asked and Sirius shook his head as he answered;

"That would have been to easy, I got her weird sister instead, you'll see her at the wedding. Strange woman, kind of obsessed with me.;" he let out another bark of laughter and licked his lips; "still though, probably more in love with me then my bride-to-be, did I not introduce you to her? Elena Chalk?" he arranged himself onto a more comfortable position on the floor;

"Elena Chalk?" James muttered; "you might of mentioned her, so there is to be a wedding then? between you and this muggle?" Sirius felt his eyes float back to the dart board, just about visible from his place on the floor;

"Yeah, I lost myself in a bet to her." and then James laughed again, more to himself and a little admonishingly;

"Maybe she really is the girl for you Padfoot, you can set each other straight;" and Sirius let out a relieved sigh as James seemed to write off all his foolishness as the usual mischief he got himself into as if it was no big deal.

"You will have to be my Best man Prongs." and James just nodded on the end of the phone before remembering he couldn't be seen;

"I shall check my diary." he announced and Sirius just laughed and thought about all the planning needed for the upcoming nuptials.

"Thank you Messr. Prongs, now could you take Bambi off of Lily so I can gossip about wedding plans with her or would you rather talk about this stuff with me?" and if he had been there Sirius would have seen the James shaped cloud off dust left by the phone which was all that remained after he had scampered at his Looney toonesque speed past Lily, some how successfully hi-jacking Harry and then in a barely intelligible slur informed her;

"Siriuswantalktyouboutosmethi n." before slamming the bunker door behind him. Lily smiled and headed toward the phone. Peace at last.

(Elena occupying Anne's body)

Elena marched around in Anne's body; in her strange clothing and felt distractingly naked without any make up on, not that applying any would make much headway, not to be cruel to Anne but her sister did lack beauty, sure, she had a nice smile as Elena had discovered earlier when making faces into a compact while riding with the chauffer to the college but other then that her features were plain and forgettable. No matter how hard she tried she didn't seem to be able to achieve quite the same results with Anne's face as Anne herself did. Anne didn't show so many teeth when smiling as Elena made her, she didn't curve her eyebrows when frowning as Elena automatically did and she certainly didn't bat her eyelashes when flirting as Elena had earlier when buying a cup of tea and asking for it in the particular way she liked it. The flirting might she add had been rather unsuccessful, the tea returning weak with one teabag and making it clear that her charm was probably diminished not only by the plainness of her sisters features but also by Elena's awkwardness in dealing with them, they were not hers after all.

Elena had eventually put the mirror away resignedly and found herself rather contented to watch the city views fly by and pretend for a moment it was her own eyes she looked out at them with. Several tears mapped along her cheeks which she hastily wiped away when she eventually arrived at her destination, The Castle college.

Anne had a lecture in contemporary novels which she was to attend for credit, it was a module Sirius would be present for, she was thankful for this in a way, she hoped he might keep an eye on her. She felt uncomfortable enough in the oak lined teardrop lecture hall until a few minutes after she had arrived and sat down near the back, five minutes before the lecture started she was accosted by her fiancé.

He sat a row behind her and took out a note book;

"Are you well?" she asked, still sounding nothing like Anne to herself and frowning trying to think how to improve on her impression.

"She speaks" he looked at her with confusion and she blushed lightly;

"I was only asking" she pointed out and he turned to her and raised an eyebrow;

"Not really, no, happy though." came his answer and Elena realised that he was the only person choosing to sit anywhere near her, in fact there was an entire ring of empty seats surrounding her.

"That's not really an answer at all, why are you sitting so close to me? It doesn't seem fashionable." she remarked, fiddling with her hair a bit, she felt enough of a leper entering the college, she didn't realise the students thought of her as an outcast to.

"Would you rather sit alone?" he asked with a touch of amusement in his voice and Elena fiddled with her shirt cuff and began to find the masculine clothing more novel then irritating.

"No, I suppose I wouldn't." she managed and she decided this phrase was pleasingly similar to something Anne would say.

"I'm sorry for the way I treated you Anne." he told her in a rush and then he bit his lip and Elena wished Anne had heard it.

"I'm sorry for the way Elena treated you." she found herself saying, turning more fully in her seat to watch him.

"Anne you are probably the best of all of us." he admitted and Elena felt heat rise in her cheeks as he said this. God she was supposed to be Anne.

"It wouldn't have killed me to be warmer, kinder." she stated thinking of Anne's cold contrived manner.

Sirius frowned down at her; was she really talking to him so intimately? She looked at him brightly, her eyes seeming more open, more engaged, she did not break away to look more or less anywhere else. She seemed as if she was figuring out a puzzle but also like she fully expected to solve it, in record time no less.

"There is no one kinder." he mumbled eventually having to look away himself and watch the lecturer shuffling through notes but the hub-bub in the room still didn't seem ready to die down for a few more minutes;

"What an odd thing to say to me. I never would have thought to have said that to me." she remarked cryptically. Expressing her true thoughts but not really leading on to whose thoughts they were, Elena was a master at this at least. A sign up sheet was passed to her, rather begrudgingly she noted, and she smiled widely at the puffed up prematurely balding boy who had given it to her; "Thank" she remembered how Anne never said thank you but rather a much more common thanks and quickly made the word; "sss" she hissed it a little, trailing off awkwardly and receiving a sneer and a snort in response. As if she were a bumbling child. She gritted her teeth and scrawled her name down on the sheet before realising she had signed Elena next to her sisters printed name in a rather odd cursive.

"Shoot." she muttered to herself as Sirius looked on in bewitched confusion at the behaviour which he really hadn't expected from her, not that it was his place to expect anything from her after all, he hadn't spent much time with her. Time spent talking.

Elena managed to hash together a reasonably convincing Anne from the bottom part of her name before she stood up to pass it on, to a tall wiry boy with golden blonde hair that looked natural despite the dark eyebrows that clearly didn't match;

"Can I help you?" he asked like she was some sort of invalid, she gestured to the sign up sheet and raised an eyebrow to which he laughed obnoxiously; "What do I look like Chalk? Your staff? You're at the back of the damn room so you carry it to the front, its not complicated, just because you spend most of your time sitting in the front row like the proper swat you are doesn't give you an excuse to act like a fucking imbecile when you want to clog up the back of the hall with your ridiculous presence." his friend vibrated with laughter behind him and Elena felt her mouth fall open as the boy raised a terribly coloured eyebrow at her, he could not have been older then nineteen and he couldn't have been smarter then a rock, Elena decided as the toff turned his back on her;

"You shouldn't curse, sir, its unbecoming." she pointed out for a start and a red headed boy who had been sitting a row ahead of him snorted and stood up;

"You shouldn't be here love, your unbecoming." the room was quiet enough now that his remark carried to virtually everyone there and as the lecturer caught sight of the centre of the altercation he shook his head disapprovingly;

"Pass up the sign in sheet Ms. Chalk and stop causing trouble, this isn't one of your feminist rallies." he groused impatiently and Elena felt her stomach turn. No wonder Anne had turned so sour since beginning at the college, why did she not quit, how could anyone bare to be treated in such a way? She turned to Sirius and when he caught her eye her shifted in his seat a bit before he eventually cleared his throat and said;

"Lay off you lot, its not her fault you're repugnant." Elena was prepared to leave it at that before she remembered that she was supposed to be Anne and Anne would be just as furious to let Sirius fight her battles for her;

"Stay out of it Black." she managed and then she turned to the rock headed blonde and the pimply ginger and bristled; "Although I must admit he has a point, sorry if I offended you but I am afraid after noticing your attire I did in fact mistake you for some sort of servant. Probably for the best though old boy," she winked; "fitting that you should already emanate the meagre man you are well on your way to becoming." she smiled widely and then turned to the red head; "And you, you abominable cretin, if there is anything I should want to know about brutality that I haven't already learnt from the mere sight of you then, and only then, will I ask for your opinion, until then I hope you have the good sense to keep your shallow thoughts to yourself." she dropped the sign up sheet on his lap and laughed, a little to loud. At this Sirius snapped to attention ; "Pardon me" she added before marching back to her seat by the attentive wizard who suddenly felt like his fiancé was in the room.

"If you are quite finished showing off could I ask you to please direct your attention to this piece by Tolstoy," the lecturer gazed around the room, pointedly avoiding Anne. Sirius stared at the curly mop that was the back of Anne's head and frowned as she seemed to struggle to keep up with her usually meticulous notes, her writing far less boxy and more open and feminine but slower, unpractised. He wondered if she had hurt her arm when she had fallen from her bike and his frown deepened as he thought of her altercation with the beetle brows in the middle row. Sure Anne had had her fare share of abuse but she usually simply crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, let them finish and then walked away. Later on Sirius noticed there was a curious smile on her face as she turned her back on them. As if simply by drawing their attention she had won. Not today however, today she blew up and for a moment her confidence was infinite. Perhaps, Sirius mused, the sisters were more alike then he had originally credited them for. He ran a finger over his bottom lip as he thought of gently kissing Elena before, he watched Anne have a rare break in attention as her soft blue eyes gazed out the window and stared at her mouth. It could have been the same woman. But of course, he turned back to the lecturer and jotted some notes; it wasn't.

**A/N: thanks for reading and please review because reviews leave me feeling INCREDIBLY COOL and surely that is what this venture is ALL ABOUT because if I just wanted to write then I need not post it online; I am writing to PLEASE YOU, please review and help me give YOU THE PEOPLE what you WANT**


	14. A Good Story

**Chapter 14**

**A Good Story**

Over the following week Anne and Elena fall into a bizarre rhythm, every evening they shared dinner and discussed their respective days and corrected each other on any slips in character. Elena had the easier role in many respects when it came to the social aspect of Anne's life as, essentially, there was no social aspect. For the academics she relied heavily on Anne's tutoring to keep her head above water and Anne had to depend on her sisters lack lustre notes to get her through her assignments.

Anne found keeping up with Elena's strangely political social life exhausting, she was constantly in talks with Sirius's friend Lily about wedding plans and after a series of heated arguments with Sirius word of him often only reached her via Elena who saw him in lectures. As long as the engagement ring remained on Anne's finger however Elena said the less time spent with Sirius was probably for the better.

Sirius was really the only person in there lives who was involved enough with both of them to see there changes in behaviour. All of Elena's friends simply excused her stiffness as prenuptial nerves and their parents were touring in Greece until the wedding but Sirius would have been seeing a lot of them both if he hadn't been avoiding Elena. Or rather Anne in her pregnant sisters body, which by the by had her vomiting often and smiling rarely.

"I've taken on Remus Lupin for a tutor." Elena told Anne over dinner, five days till the wedding and still no change on the body swap although after a lot of reading into folklore they both had high hopes for a shift in conditions on the night of the full moon.

"Is it really wise to become further involved with him Elena? I mean, he supposedly has a romantic interest in me and therefore, _you_ until we become ourselves again and considering his history with you and with Sirius he's really a bit of a time bomb." Elena stared up at her sister over her bowl of mushroom soup and frowned;

"I need the help Anne and he talks so well about history, he has the perfect mind for it." she remarked and Anne narrowed her eyes at Elena dropping her spoon into her bowl to cross her arms obstinately.

"He also happens to be _exactly_ your type, I won't let you do it to Sirius or to yourself Elena. It won't do, you have to be better." Elena scoffed at this and frowned darkly at her sister but didn't deny it as she lifted her chin tempestuously.

"I do have the ability to forge a platonic relationship with a man Anne despite what you might think and I intend to, if you want me to pass your midterms then Lupin is the answer." Anne felt her lip curl as her sister said this;

"Oh really? Does Lupin even study history?" Elena ran one of Anne's steadily growing curls through her fingers and stared down at the table. "Well?" Anne prompted and Elena eventually looked back at her sister edging on derision;

"Fine, not history, that's what you wanted to hear, isn't it?" and Anne shook her head and sat back in her chair a little.

"Not history." she repeated. "Well then I'll make a bloody fabulous tutor won't he? Remind me Elena, what do I study?"

"Oh don't patronise me Anne, he's helpful and he explains things in a way I can understand, I swear, I love Sirius and I will be better, really. I get it, your concerned, it's nice knowing you are supporting my attempt to get on the straight and narrow." she smile broadly at her sister had just stood up from the table; "Where are you going?" Elena asked confused and Anne let loose a little smile before sitting back in her seat;

"Well I was going to go and get myself a stiff drink but unfortunately," she sighed wearily, "I'm a pregnant virgin." then she laughed again and Elena laughed too and like they were both prone to doing she shook her head; they were an incredibly exasperated pair really.

"I'm sorry." Elena told her sister but Anne shrugged good naturedly;

"I some how doubt you meant it to happen." Elena bit her lip and cast her eyes to the side before thinking of a way to change the subject. Grinning she asked

"For the dress, white, cream or ivory?" Anne groaned and picked up her spoon once more;

"Lily said she had cream but that for blue eyes white is good." Elena nodded thoughtfully as Anne continued to grouse until she remembered something further she had meant to say to her sister.

"Do you want to make an advance on Lupin?" Elena quizzed and Anne blanched mid boring sentence;

"Elena, if I could give my heart so freely I would but it's at this time that I do not hold it." and Elena frowned at her sister;

"But you can't even hold a conversation with Sirius, you have nothing in common, how can you love him?" and Anne felt her cheeks heat up, she really didn't want to talk with her sister about being in love with the man her sister was engaged to while she was posing as said sister, but she had no one else she could confide in so she blew out a breath and simply said;

"Because he is everything I'm not, he is like the weight on the other side of the scale. Without him I fall to the bottom but the more of him there is the higher I rise." and she turned to Elena with a pained expression on her face as if she alone felt all the worlds loneliness; "Do you understand what I mean?" she pressed for a response. Elena gestured vaguely before clearing her throat and saying;

"Before all this nonsense, before you and I changed bodies, I was a bad match for Sirius. I loved him in my heart but not in my actions, I wonder if I am being punished for it now as I see this little piece of madness has a very clever moral." she blew carefully on a spoonful of soup and ate it before continuing; "I see now what I had and I appreciate you more then I ever have Anne as I see how it is to be you but for once I feel as if you are missing the lesson life is teaching us." Anne raised an eyebrow and gestured for her sister to go on; "Anne are you happy?" and Anne blew out a heavy sigh;

"Not a bit." she remarked and Elena nodded;

"Then the love you feel for Sirius is ridiculous, if he isn't your joy then what is he? Your heart ache?" Anne's gaze hardened as she took in her twins meaning and she pressed her mouth into a frustrated line;

"Well you know my life doesn't exactly carry a theme of joy, we can't all be like you Elena and have beauty and grace and smarts and fit in to our lives perfectly like a piece of a damn puzzle, ok?" she reaches to pull at her mop of hair but of course its not there, in stead she disturbs the complicated up do and it tugs at her scalp painfully. She look at her sister from a fringe of harried blonde hair " He lives for **you **Elena."_ not me,_ the words went unsaid. Anne was not angry, she didn't yell. She was long resigned to this but Elena just smiled mildly in response to her sisters miserable declaration.

"So life closes a door, in years we will look back and say, Sirius Black, Anne loved him once but they had very different views on life. They had so little in common, it never would have worked. So good that Remus Lupin, that dashing scholarly type agreed to tutor her, she would never have had such a happy youth otherwise. Then our kids will play together and you will be glad to have loved Sirius once, you were such better friends for it in the end." Anne sucked soup off the edge of her spoon loudly,

"Oh don't slurp your soup just to annoy me." Elena groused and Anne giggled;

"Oh is it annoying you?" she asked and began again so that Elena slammed her hands on the table;

"Stop." she demanded and Anne lowered her spoon;

"I'll stop slurping my soup, which I will have you know in some Eastern cultures, Japan if I'm not mistaken it is polite to slurp your soup, if you stop telling my future as if you know a single thing about what I want." Elena shook her head at her sisters ridiculous and extensive knowledge of trivia that seemed specifically tailored to annoy her and added a small amount of pepper to her soup before stirring;

"and what do you want?" Elena asked raising an eyebrow at her sister;

"I look quite good when I do that." Anne remarked as she observed her sisters manipulation of her own face. Elena dropped the brow and snorted in a rather Anne like manner;

"Stop trying to change the subject come on, what? How do you envision your future if I am so far off?" Anne pressed her mouth into a line, stumped and Elena felt a little bad but not bad enough to _not_ drive the point home.

"Are you happily married to my fiancé? With little grey eyed brown mop headed toddlers at your ankles?" Anne stirred her soup a bit more and eventually managed to say her only notable thought;

"You're not being fair." she grumbled.

"You know what they say Anne?" Elena goaded and Anne held her hand out for the pepper;

"What?" she complied as her sister passed it to her;

"Since stories are the things we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better about ourselves;" she smiled broadly as if to show what feeling better looked like " we should never ever let the truth" she wrinkled her nose as if it was something distasteful; "get in the way of a good story." Anne sprinkled the pepper over soup as Elena blew over another mouthful of hers and popped in her mouth; "_Ever_." she added on the end after doing this and Anne sighed lightly;

"You think I should just **forget** about loving Sirius then?" and Elena stared Anne down for a moment;

"You know I never would have kept him for myself if it wasn't for the baby. You could have had him otherwise." but Anne just sniffed and shook her head;

"He would never have had me." she responded and Elena, eloquent though she was, had trouble defending against it.

"Just try to keep things placid and I'll be exceedingly nice to Remus anyway, how about that, but no funny business, then when this is all sorted maybe you could note how dashing and intellectual he is." and with a stubborn look from Anne that was Elena's final word on the matter, though she did stay true to it. They finished their soup in a strange silence.

The truth was Elena was closer to the target then she knew, Sirius and Anne made a terrible match, there discussions always either escalated or degenerated at a rapid pace and Anne was always silently begging him with all her heart to be worth loving in more ways than just some fantasy scenario she had made up.

The constant yelling followed by stony silence was giving her head aches and whenever they did manage to not yell at one another it was entirely up to Anne's hardy efforts to keep her mouth shut as he tried to bring up either them having sex or, to her utter dismay,_ Elena_. He was always talking of Elena or rather what odd thing 'Anne' had done. How she was so much more similar to her sister then he initially realised.

At first it disconcerted her but then she wondered if the cruel things he was beginning to tail into saying about 'Anne' weren't stemmed from denial of his mounting feelings for her. She was after all, his true fiancé, perhaps a part of him knew and that was why he couldn't seem to get her out of his head.

Anne feared these discussions more than there arguments but she said nothing of them to Elena and didn't dare broach her suspicions with Sirius, if she did she would probably have to confess everything or he would simply announce Anne was his true hearts desire and not go through with the wedding and no matter how it turned out Anne was determined to have Sirius married to whoever's body had his baby in it. Assuming it was his baby, this thought was the worst of all.

The next day, with four days left to the wedding, Lily was just on her way out after a lengthy discussion regarding seating arrangements when Sirius bumped past her at the door. He was visiting Elena to try and reconcile over their latest argument as he had been encouraged to by the increasingly meddlesome Anne at the end of their last lecture.

"Elena?" he called into the chilled front room as all the windows had been thrown open. Anne entered the room in her sisters bloated over heated pregnant body and smiled wanly at the incredibly beautiful man.

"So glad you're here love." she announced allowing her smile to grow and he lifted a brow in a trademark expression of unspoken suspicion. His eyes wandered around the expensively furnished front room of the Chalk pool house, the wicker chairs and white gilding. Elena had decided to redo the room in soft blue, claiming it was calming. He didn't mind so much, it made her eyes a little less startling.

"I came to apologise, I wasn't feeling up to it at first but Anne was quite adamant that I should and spoke at length on how contrite you were." he folded his arms and Anne narrowed her sisters doe eyes but carried her broad smile, quite bravely she believed, through the nausea.

"Did she really?" she asked and for some masochistic reason pressed on with the painful topic; "She still as keen on you as ever?" she placed one hand on her hip delicately and the other on her abdomen as if to say "Hope you had fun chatting with my sister who you better not find more interesting than me because yes I am still pregnant" in just one small gesture.

"You tell me." he moved into the room and sat down with his usual air of devastating nonchalance and Anne shrunk a little, loosing a high nervous laugh;

"How should I know?" she asked in her odd tight voice.

"She's _your_ twin, surely you must have some insight." and Anne cast around a little desperately for a response that wouldn't sound completely like herself and completely unlike her sister.

"Well you say she has been acting oddly? Maybe that's how she acts when she isn't desperately trying to hide how in love she is with someone. You know, more relaxed, confident?" she tried thinking it was fairly good demonstration of Elena's abilities with in depth social critique. She tried to treat it clinically, like a science.

"Nosy." he added derisively and Anne snapped around to look at him.

"Why don't you like her Sirius? she's my sister, I would like you two to get along." Sirius made a face like she had just asked him to do something painful before he gestures vaguely and announced;

"The sister who you punched in the face you mean?" and Anne was so shocked by this she laughed aloud;

"That was** your** fault!" she cried and then winced as she realised that she had sounded almost entirely like herself as she said it. Sirius kept his eyes on her then as he muttered;

"I wouldn't have done it if I thought you were going to punch her in the face." he grumbled and her mouth flapped uselessly for a moment before she deflated and sighed.

"I know," she collapsed across from him, "What do you have against her?"_ me,_ her mind echoed.

"Well," Sirius floundered then scoffed; "I mean she is completely ridiculous for one."

"Ridiculous?" she felt colour rush to her cheeks and ignored the continuous demands of her sister that she take it easy as her lip curled into a snarl; "Says you! You puffed up peacock of a man, if she is so laughable a character then why come here on her word? Why blather on about her so much." Anne demanded even though she knew why, because even if she was supposed to be doing a believable rendition of Anne she was still as charismatic and persuasive as ever.

"I only take an interest for you, I mean what are you insinuating Elena? Realistically, if you were me, what would you see when you looked at her?" and Anne took his meaning on sombrely before feeling tears threaten her eyes and she wonders why she does it to herself.

"You petty creature." She growled and huffed as another headache began to weigh against her forehead;

"What? You think I'm shallow because I won't develop some sort of romantic intonation toward your socially stunted sister?" Anne refused to look at him as he waited for an answer, she gave none. "Would you prefer I did?" he pressed and she closed her eyes against the tears and the light and the sight of him. An incredible sight, when he was angry she hurt her mind trying to take in his every regal detail.

"Maybe you shouldn't be with me if my lack of interest in your twin makes me so shallow." and Anne rolled her eyes;

"Oh for Christ sake Sirius you know that's not what I mean, I just… I wonder, if I looked like her, if you would love me or if you would just call me ridiculous." he laughed lightly then glad her ramblings weren't born of some Freudian web of unsolvable misery and rather just regular girl stuff. So he did what you do for a girl when she starts asking questions like that, he moves close enough to her to put a hand under her chin and looks into her eyes and softly promises;

"I'd love you no matter what, you should know that by now." her eyes carry some sort of challenge in them as she meets his and he waits for her response, still smiling mildly; Anne shrugs out of his touch but continues to watch him;

"Me or just the idea of me." and like the utter failure he is he doesn't manage to filter the sentence before it escapes him;

"Trust me, the idea of you is really not all that appealing." but the implication that she is of poor merit doesn't seem to bother her and of course, on a level, he thinks, even with the hormones, she must be nearly as confident as she was. She eventually says;

"No, I don't suppose it is." and he thinks of her anger earlier and once again unthinkingly asks;

"Why do you take everything I say about Anne so personally." and heading into the kitchen sweet to make some rose tea Anne simply calls to him;

"She needs someone to care about her." and it twists her stomach how true it is.

**A/N: Thanks a million for reading! This fell right out of me once I started it and I am feeling really motivated to write as I always do when I have more important life relevant things to do and when I get reviews! Thanks so much for all the support! thanks for reading and please review**


	15. Damn

**Chapter 15 **

**Damn**

_(Anne in Elena's body)_

"You are intending to marry three days from now and you are only handing out the invitations now? My my Elena how you are slipping, you may as well have eloped! Still George and I intend to go, I'm sure it will be lovely." The third of Elena's "very close" friends whom she insisted must be invited in person sipped at her damn rose tea in the damn baby blue damn parlour where Anne had spent the last damn horrible week of her damn increasingly horrible life. Bernadette was a debonair woman of some sort of Eastern European dissent, her auburn hair was glossy and plaited and her lightly slanted brown eyes seemed to peal apart everything they fell on. Anne said that she was pompous and up her self, Elena said she was some sort of social Goddess and simply must be there. Another "Incredibly close friend" of Elena's, in fact they were "practically sisters" Anne rolled her eyes as the woman had never been mentioned to her before sat on her right having declined the tea and in stead opted for a no nonsense black coffee which she had not yet touched. Audrey had brown hair no dissimilar to Anne's colour though instead of looking drab and weathered as it did on Anne on this woman it simply brought her whimsically pale skin and delicate grey eyes which were carefully painted with a deep green shadow. She cracked a large maroon smile and tapped her fingers on the table;

"Elena pet, will you be wearing a white gown?" she goaded and Anne wondered if she was hinting at knowing at Elena's explicit and increasingly poorly hidden antics or if she was taking a stab in the dark as the damn ladies who lunch tend to do. Anne released one of Elena's most charming smiles as she turned to Audrey, she tried to seem completely at ease among her "wonderfully supportive" friends.

"I have been discussing this with a newly wed actually," she lifted her damn tea cup and its stupid saucer from the table; "She is well up with the fashion and she said for my complexion nothing else will do." Anne wanted to be sick and open all the windows but apparently that would be to obvious so instead she took a sip of her bitter tea as the beautiful ladies tinkled out their tinkly little laughs.

"So," Bernadette crossed her ankles and ran her thumb along the gold inlaid edge of Elena's China; "did you get stuck with Anne as the maid of honour?" she asked as if it was a tragedy worth days of morning.

"It's only fitting," Anne didn't quite pull off her casual shrug with conviction but it would have to do; "She is family after all." and her "dear friends" nodded sympathetically.

"Yes, its unfortunate but understandable." and there was a moments silence.

"Will you be having a ladies night?" Audrey asked delicately and Bernadette leaned forward slightly;

"With Anne as a maid of honour?" Anne asked with a scoff on her voice; "You must be joking." and they all laughed meanly and Anne felt like she was going round the twist because for God sake she had referenced herself in the third person at least five times a day for the last week and it was really not good for her mental health.

After another gruelling hour and twenty seven minutes, but who is counting? Audrey gave her a light kiss goodbye leaving her cheek barely marked with her lip stick and Bernadette kissed her twice on each cheek to "make it continental" or is Anne were allowed to put a twist on it "make the terror last three and a half seconds longer than necessary".

Thank God that night was the full moon, she closed the door behind the women and pressed her back to it, allowing herself to slide to the floor as she placed her head in her hands;

"I am Anne Chalk, I am Anne Chalk, this madness will end, this madness will end, I am sane, I am Anne Chalk." she began steady breaths to try and ground herself but ended up hyperventilating terribly until the phone rang and made her call out a loud;

"Damn!" she pulled herself up from the ground and stood beside the phone for a moment, staring at it with contempt. She lifted it with a shaking hand before smiling and spouting;

"Hello?" cheerily, she thought, considering.

"Anne? Is Elena there?" it was Sirius, she pressed her hand to her fore head and held the phone away from her before clearing her throat;

"Sorry Sirius, the house lines cross, you know how it is, it's Elena, how are you love?" She asked biting her lip after deciding she had said that far to fast.

"Elena, right." he heaved a sigh on the other line making Anne's gut twist further with nerves. "Elena, I don't think I can do this with you anymore." the sentence flew right out of him and Anne dropped her shaking left hand to grip the edge of the counter.

"Sirius…" She began in a levelled voice but she didn't know what to say which was bad because she had to say something perfect. "You love me?" she asked in a shaking voice and her heart became much more obvious in her chest;

"You know I do." his voice was pained and Anne tried to nod to assure herself. The full moon, Elena would win him back tonight from her own body, the full moon had to work. The full moon.

"Sirius, please, tonight. You need to come, come to my cottage tonight. I'm begging you." her voice began to die and in the end she could barely whisper. Sirius groaned in frustration;

"You never struck me as someone who would beg before all of this mess you know, I don't like it and anyway, I can't come tonight. I swear Elena, its like no matter what I do or how damn sorry you are there is no home or peace for me with you anymore. Not like there was, I could have married you then but now? You are tearing yourself apart and I don't want to be dragged down with you." at first he hadn't minded her mysteriously absent confidence and control but the more Elena's behaviour changed from what he knew the more it pissed him off. It was like he didn't even know her never mind love her. Her voice trembled down the line;

"Sirius you have to come." and he ground his teeth, even if he wanted to, it was the full moon and Remus was like his brother, full moons come first. You don't become an animagus for someone without figuring that out.

"I can't." he repeated through gritted teeth and he heard Elena sniff and he wondered if she was crying but then her voice rang through the muggle phone strong and firm;

"We won't make it if you don't." and the line cut off and Sirius almost smiled at her familiar audacity.

"My girl." he affirmed to no one as he hung up the phone and he wondered if he should go to her at night and he frowned as he picked up the phone again to call Remus. He furrowed his brow, the line was busy; "weird." he mumbled.

Remus started lightly in his chair when the phone rang and pulled his reading glasses from his nose before uncurling out of his musty arm chair stiffly and lifting it to his ear with a small frown.

"Hello?" he coughed against the hoarseness in his voice before straightening automatically when the reply came.

_(Elena in Anne's body)_

"Hi Remus? it's Anne, have I the right number?" Elena smiled Anne's coy little smile on the other end, calling from a phone box not far from Remus's apartment block which had been oddly hard to find in a ramshackle part of the city a bus ride out from the college.

"Oh, yes you do, I'm Remus, this is Remus." he winced at his own heart picking up in his chest and shook his head, ridiculous;

"Good," there was a smile in her voice and Remus ran a hand through his fair hair; "I was wondering, would you be available, maybe for a little while, to go over some of the material for the new assignment with me?" Remus felt his eyes widen slightly before he checked his watch, four and half hours till the moon;

"Where are you now?" he quizzed and Elena smiled more smugly at the end of the line;

"On the corner of Parkwest and St. Johns." she murmured slipping another coin into the phones credit slot; "in the phone box." and Remus laughed breathily, there would be time surely.

"You are actually just on the end of my road, I live in Shankhill." he confessed and Elena acted like she didn't already know prompting Remus to cast a charm to clean the rather pathetic flat, pull on a beige jumper and walk out to meet her.

Anne, Remus observed, was looking quite put together in a long over coat with a grey scarf folded into it and he noted, a light dust of blush and some of that muggle stuff for women's eye lashes;

"You look nice." he said without really thinking of it and felt a little ridiculous for a moment till Anne smile prettily and made him forget all about;

"Thank..ss Remus." she responded tripping oddly over her s, he smiled back at her before gesturing toward the path;

"I live up down this way." and he tried not to think to much about how Anne had described him rather crassly as a poor boy. Knowing full well it had set off her suspicions in her original conclusion of him and Sirius's origins which he had drawn from her memory. Catching her eye occasionally now as they walked together he couldn't help but think that a lot had changed since that night. For one, Anne didn't look maddeningly unhappy all the time, something Remus quite like, and for another, according to Sirius, her academics had slipped significantly.

"You were the last person I would have expected to need my help you know," Remus remarked and Elena turned to him trying to think like Anne as Remus fumbled with his keys outside the shabby entrance to the block of flats titled Shankhill. "Top of the first term weren't you?" and Elena knew what Anne would say to this;

"Not in Lit." and Remus eventually shifted the stiff door releasing a strong sent of Chinese food from the communal hall way;

"Second floor;" he indicated to the stairs and then said; "Sirius has always had a way with words." knowing full well who had topped that class thanks to much gloating from the pureblood.

"You can say that again." Elena grumbled as she marvelled at the ease in which her sisters athletic body scaled the steep spiral stairs. Lupin just hummed noncommittally before walking to the end of the poorly wall papered corridor and unlocking the door to his flat.

**A/N: MUST SLEEP NOW, thanks for reading guys and please REVIEW! Thanks so much for all the support so far, I'm knockin um out at a mighty pace so thanks!**


	16. Lucky Guess

**A/N: Hi everybody! The next few chapters are set on the night of the full moon which will hopefully mean an end to the body swap! **

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**Chapter 16**_  
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**Lucky Guess**

_(Elena in Anne's body)_

Elena followed him into the apartment and readjusted her book back on her shoulder, Remus led her to a the dining table cleared with two seats, the desk was two small for two.

"I, uhm," Elena sat down as he pulled out the seat for her and he took a seat next to her; "You don't have to do that." she remarked because she was _Anne_ and she must behave accordingly.

"What?" Remus asked, as strange look on his face as he tugged a pen from behind his ear that Elena hadn't previously noticed;

"Pulling out chairs, kissing the backs of hand and that, it's a little…" she tried to remember Anne's exact words; "it encourages gender stereotypes." she eventually remembered and Remus huffed a little and smiled at her;

"You're my guest Anne." he managed and Elena remembered how he had just shook her hand when they had first met. She tried to cut Remus some slack;

"Thank..ss for doing this." she had to stop stumbling over that s, why couldn't her sister just say thank you? Remus didn't know how to feel about having Anne in his apartment, she sat straight in her chair and bowed her head a little humbly and Remus cleared his throat before finding a muggle notebook;

"It's nothing really, what's the trouble?" he enquired, she quickly launched into an explanation of her troubles with understanding the changing geography of the muggle world through history and Remus nodded soberly as he stood to get the Atlas he kept on one of the six book shelves. What Remus would have considered a rather smooth productive two hours of study later Anne groaned and dropped her head to the table;

"Who am I kidding? I'm no academic." and Remus was startled at her outcry but little did he know Elena had spent the last evening watching Anne cover the same amount of materiel they had spent nearly two and half hour slaving over in just over ten minutes before going on to more or less finish what Elena would call four days worth of reading. Anne hadn't even been to the lectures.

"How does she do it?" Elena asked aloud quietly and Remus wasn't sure what exactly to do as Anne pulled at her mop of hair.

"Anne I don't know what spectrum you are trying to match but I assure you we are really tearing through this materiel." Elena felt the beginnings of a head ache stab through her head as she clenched up with frustration.

"Pity it's a week behind my lectures." Remus watched the clock and felt the moon prickle his skin.

"We should take a break." Remus added but Anne shook her head and stood away from the table, suddenly her scent was everywhere and he spluttered as his stomach twisted with the wolfs demanding presence.

"A break implies we'll come back to it." she muttered before surrendering; "Thanks for being so nice to me." and Elena, feeling impossibly stupid closed the atlas over and smiled at Remus. "Can I use your loo? Maybe when I come back you could quiz me or something?" and he gestured toward the wash closet with one of his rather lovely hands. She didn't notice its tremble as she nodded and crossed the room. As she closed the door behind her her vision blurred to black for a desperate moment and then shifted back, her body felt colder then before, she was on the small bathrooms cool tiled floor as she watched goose bumps erupt over her skin. She sat up fast and hit her head off the side of the sink, moaning she pulled her self up by the edge of the delf basin. Standing over the sink she faced the mirror, her face drawn, tears began to track down he cheeks as she watched herself. This reminded her vaguely of when she had first showered in Anne's body. The welts that marred her sisters skin that looked to be carved out with anxious fingers. She ran her hand over the one concealed by her top, almost healed. Anne had eventually confessed she had done it herself but that she didn't really understand why.

"Poor Anne." Elena whispered to her sisters face even though she knew the last thing her sister wanted was her pity. Body still startlingly weak and shaky Elena splashed some water onto her face and carefully dapped away the smudges in her mascara before feeling a feverish icy sweat break across her skin and she felt her eyes squeeze shut against a growing wave of nausea and her knees trembled ominously. Her posture buckled and her grip on the basin slipped, this time when she opened her eyes she was some where else entirely.

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_(Anne in Elena's body)_

Sirius had eventually given up on calling Remus and instead had tried to ring James to tell him he couldn't make it that night. When James had answered he had said it would be fine, that he could handle it himself and Sirius had thanked him. When he arrived at Elena's he was struck as he often was with everything he had experienced in her home. With being found out by Anne, at Elena telling him she loved him for the first time, at Elena making love to him for the first time. The betrayal, the shame, the love and the laughter. Her baby, his baby?

Anne knew he was outside but she waited for him to ring the door belle before she lifted herself up with her swollen ankles and opened the door to him. She could see it in his eyes every time she opened the door for him, the same look she had seen on his face the day he had dragged her through the house and trapped her alone with him when she was still Anne, of course not the expression of manic malice. The other, of vulnerability, the one that had broken her heart. Like he would give anything to not want to cry.

She stepped forward and put her arms around his waist and hugged him carefully.

"I'm here." he said and she nodded against his chest;

"I know." she stepped back and looked up into his stormy eyes; "Thank you." she said earnestly. She led him into the house and moved around him to close the door. She wore a lacy midnight blue dress that was cut low around her bust and finished at her knee. Anne felt terribly revealed but she knew that Elena looked incredibly beautiful in this dress, her blonde hair down for once and her mouth painted neat red.

"You're a vision." he turned to her to say and she blushed and her eyes broke from his to stare at the ground.

"I- uh." she didn't see Sirius scowl at her meek reaction. Was there anything left of the powerful present Elena he had loved? The demanding confident woman, who would meet your eye no matter what? Always gracious, never yielding. He smirked as he stared at her hands balled lightly into fists, perhaps.

He took off his coat and threw it on the floor but Elena just scooped it up and carefully dusted it off before hanging it by the door. Shaking his head at her silence he barged through the lounge to the bar on the other side of the room and took the crystal cut bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. Elena moved and sat on the wicker lined florally cushioned couch perpendicular to the bar.

He raised an eyebrow at Elena over the counter who just sat and watched him, analytically awaiting his next move. He pulled the crystal cap from the bottle with a light _shing_ and threw it on the ground to smash from the impact before tipping his head back and drinking the whiskey straight from the decanter. She shifted slightly in his peripheral vision, and yet only silence in response.

He pulled the decanter from his lips and threw it to the floor. It hit the ground and was demolished in a shower of crystal and thirty year old Scottish Whiskey. Elena lifted her feet lightly from the floor to avoid a piece of the clear skidding shrapnel but made no further reaction. It was nothing short of infuriating how she frowned in silence. Sirius barrelled over the counter and pushed her back on to the coach running a hand up her thigh,

"Nothing to say love?" he growled against her cheek as he moved a hand to massage her breast through her soft dress.

"Please don't leave me." she whispered and his grip on her thigh tightened;

"Stop acting like you are some passive decoration Elena." he hissed as he lifted her skirt up toward her waist. "I'm not in love with your face." he added as she put her hand over his.

"Sirius…" she whispered as her heart fluttered in her chest.

"Is it the guilt that changed you?" he asked, his breath whispering against her throat as he ignored her hand and slid his fingers over more soft forbidden skin. "Or was that girl a lie, do you even exist Elena?" he asked as he slipped a hand into her underwear and Anne whimpered. "Is this all you are? Really?"

"Stop." she moaned as he brushed over her teasingly.

"You know this used to be the only thing you didn't complain about." and his hand was gone and Anne shuddered with arousal and relief and bitter disappointment. Realising in this moment what Sirius has expected of Elena since he failed to kiss her hand at the door Anne pushed him off of her and rose to her feet. Trying to find just the right things to yell at him about,

"My God Sirius, have you lost your mind?! That decanter had been in my family for almost fifty years and if you knew anything you would know that a gentlemen doesn't simply barge into the home of a lady without proper greeting and…"

"Close love." he cut across as he smirked; "but a bit to loud, ladies must be collected remember." and trying to figure out how Elena gracefully carelessly demanded respect she eventually just pushed Sirius out of the way and stormed toward her bedroom prepared to slam the door and hopefully leave the conversation till tomorrow but Sirius was on her heels and as he caught her arm she turned to him before her vision Black slightly and she fell to her knees catching the weight of her upper body on her free hand.

"Elena?" he asked as Anne shuddered on the ground and she noticed that there was a small piece of crystal lodged in her hand as she lifted it instinctively to investigate the source of the sharp twinge, she took a moment to watch blood bloom across her sisters lily skin. A dull pain resonated as far as her elbow before she let out a shuddering breath and, grimacing, fell again. This time she opened her eyes to a very different view.

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**A/N: Well well, you can decide whether you want to follow Anne or Elena first if you simply review! I'm good either way!**

**Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!**


	17. The Ugly Truth

**A/N: Thankyou so much for the support so far and please enjoy!**_  
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**Warning: this chapter touches briefly on themes of sexual abuse.**

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**Chapter 17**

**The Ugly Truth**

_(Elena returns to her body)_

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…" the words whispered out against her hair as she eventually opened bleary eyes to see the face of her fiancé;

"Sirius?" she asked and found her voice oddly hoarse, she cleared her throat and happily allowing her movements to find there old fluidity slipped into an upright position and pressed a hand to her forehead; "What could you possibly have to be sorry for?" and she glanced down at a small bandage with gauze attached to her hand; "Oh gosh love, this better not have to stay on till the wedding," she peeled it back slightly and peered below, there was a small cut and she smiled; "Don't you think this is a bit much for such a small wound?" She asked and she eventually turned to Sirius, he looked stricken;

"Well I had some difficulty you know doing mug- Well I don't know how much is to much I just used the first aid box but Elena..." She smiled at being called by her own named but the smile fell as she felt a tightness along the edge of her face, she reached up and felt more soft cotton.

"My face?" she asked and his expression twisted further;

"There was glass on the floor…" he eventually said; "and you fainted." her eyes widened as she felt colour drain from her cheeks. The head ache that had started at Remus's had subsided but she felt the nausea of her pregnancy settling over her along with imminent dread. She gingerly pressed a hand to her face and winced, she could feel the tender lacerations in her flesh.

"How bad is it?" she asked as she turned back to who she had realised since the loss of his company was the very true love of her life. His frown was deep, his steel grey eyes full of concern;

"I don't mind it. The doctor said to change the dressing twice a day, she said to keep it clean." Elena didn't let her eyes wander to the mirror on the mahogany vanity by the door and kept her gaze trained on the beautiful man;

"and the scars?" She kept calm, her mouth set in an ambiguous line.

"Some." he choked out and then cleared his throat but Elena sprung up from the bed leaning over to the mirror and saw that the cloth over her face hid the her left cheek from view as well as along her jaw.

"You said the doctor was here?" she met his eye in the mirror, "How long have I been asleep?" She noted that her and Anne seemed to have switched places quite a bit before the moons rise, they had read enough about the blue hour causing shifts as well though, and the appearance of the evening star.

"Not long." he remarked and stood from his seat at the edge of the bed. "Dr. Rickman was there when I called." Elena frowned, Dr. Hannah Rickman was there neighbour and she and her husband who ran the Castles science department had had a little bit of a disagreement with the Chalk family as of late. The husband, Henry, had been on the panel that has allowed Anne to enter the college and hadn't refused her. Something he openly admitted to, it is to be expected their mother had scorned as Anne smirked over her quail, his wife a doctor, of course he would be inclined to such liberal attitudes.

"The last family I wish to owe a favour to are the Rickman's." but then she thought of Anne and how it really wasn't her place to scorn Anne's decision to attend the Castle especially since she was contemplating enrolling herself. Nothing worse then wasted potential, it was something Anne had always said to her and something that for the first time she believed and she sighed; "This family owes them enough favours." and she closed her eyes and pulled the gauze from her face with a flourish and took a bracing breath before looking at her broken skin. She gasped audibly: the most shocking laceration moved along just below her cheek bone starting around her hair line and found its end at the corner of her pretty upturned nose. It was held together with some glue stitched as were some other uneven slices that stood out along the side of her face, ugly and mottled. Her skin was puckered and bruised and she couldn't help but think that one fall onto a glassy floor wasn't enough to do all this damage. She was glad in that moment for the time she had spent in Anne's body, the time she had spent in Anne's life because she knew then how to be prepared by the look Sirius would give her, a look that held no desire, only pity. She kept herself collected and turned to him.

"I'm sorry I can't even offer you beauty Sirius." she told him coolly and sighed as she avoided his eye, choosing to focus instead on the gauze in her hand which was stained with pink and a small amount of clear infection fighting fluid produced by her body.

"This is my fault." he eventually said and she looked at his frowning mouth, still not wanting to look into his expressive and beautiful eyes; she smiled a watery smile.

"I deserve worse than this." she told him and then she looked him in the eye and he looked filled with shame. Probably shame that he couldn't help but be repulsed at the sight of her once nymph like face. "I deserve so much worse." she added as she thought of Anne and all Anne would have done in her place and all Anne had been willing to do in her place and eventually a tear mapped its way down her cheek and she wiped it away;

"Silly of me." she muttered and then she looked up to Sirius as he had cleared the space between them and his brow was furrowed and he looked just a little more guilty than her;

"I have to tell you something." he told her but she shook her head;

"You first Sirius." she told him and she led him toward the bed, she wore one of her tighter lacier dresses which pressed luxuriously against her as she sat next to him. "You deserve an explanation." she told him and she took his hand. She had long thought of what she would say to him if things were to go as planned on the night of the full moon and her accelerated heart be damned she was going to confide in him. Even if it meant she lost him, she couldn't let him marry her if her didn't know and Sirius was a lot of things but cruel was not one of them. He wouldn't hate her, she hoped, even if she was sure he would think less of her.

"I have done so many terrible things Sirius." and he shushed her as she said this in a firm voice but she shook her head, "No I have, but I think now that I have had some distance from it all I understand it better." she tucked a leg underneath herself and her face took on a distant expression and Sirius wondered how many more secrets such a young woman could keep, someone who he thought he had known quite well but who had never failed to shock him thus far. A woman he had felt so removed from recently until this moment.

"I was a child," she muttered and then cleared her throat. "couldn't have been older than six and I used to have a friend, my first friend besides Anne really." she smiled fondly and reached out and took Sirius's hand, her voice lowered, she had never spoken of it out loud before and hoped never to have to again.

"I used to visit her house every Friday when Anne went to swimming and we would do the same things." her grip tightened on Sirius's hand as he tried to see the significance of her play dates.

"We would play with dolls, we would have lunch and then her mother would set us down for a nap and my friend, she would sleep." Elena gulped audibly and Sirius applied a little pressure to her hand;

"She had a brother." she sounded scared and as the nature of the story began to clear up a feeling of dread began to dredge up in Sirius's gut and he almost wanted her to stop;

"You don't have to…" he whispered but she looked him in the eye then, looking determined, her palm damp on his.

"I want to." she told him and his eyes grazed over the ugly mess along the side of her face for a moment and then the harshness in her doe eyes and he nodded; "The first time he pretended it was a game, he was a child himself, ten at the most, he brought me to his room and he locked the door. I remember," her voice shook but she kept going and Sirius was beginning to feel sick; "I don't know what put the idea in his head." she added airily as if she had often wondered and the wizard wondered how she had carried this secret with her for so long. She glanced down at her arm;

"There was a belt for my hands," she told him and then she took a deep breath; "it wasn't till a few years on that I realised what he had been doing but even then I knew it was wrong. Even then it was frightening and I was so embarrassed." Sirius felt pale, he stared at Elena and remembered pinning her down when he had first arrived, trying petulantly to get a rise out of the woman he was supposed to love. Who didn't even shed a tear as she recounted what sounded like a horrible nightmare.

"You didn't tell anyone about that day?" he asked and her eyes closed as she faced toward at the ground;

"It wasn't just once." she confessed into the silence of the room, only a slight whisper of wind whistling over the windows to disturb the dawning of the truth as Sirius shook his head and tried to think of something, anything to say.

"I'm sorry that happened to you." he said and she pulled her hand out of his grip as she stood and moved to the window.

"Me?" she laughed and tapped her fingers against the sill as he watched her from the bed, she stared at the blue light of the moon over her flower beds and sighed; "I'm filth." she whispered and Sirius felt fear way on his own heart as she pressed her forehead to the window pane, fear that there was nothing he could do for her. That the damage was already done because how could he tell her its not her fault, how could he convince her that it didn't change the person she had become. How could he convince himself that she was the person he thought?

"I caused an argument between me and the girl, my friend soon after it started and I was ok aside from the nightmares after that. But I suppose I wasn't really, I was afraid of men, afraid of boys. Frightened of my own damn shadow. Terrified someone find out, that they could tell, that they knew. So when I turned fifteen." she said and he realised she had begun to speak of something else. "I was coming out into society and I knew I couldn't be so fearful. I needed to relax, trust people." she said this with a little venom and her fiancé felt his foot begin to tap out a nervous rhythm as the tension built and Elena continued "My memory of my first outing as a woman was taken by what he put in my drink" she moved away from the window and sat down quite a bit further down the bed; "or maybe my mind was kind enough to let me forget it." she met his eyes then and the rest came out, measured and he knew he looked like everything she didn't want to see, like he felt sorry for her, like her pitied her but he hoped she would look passed to see he loved her still.

"I was at the debutante ball and I arrived stag, intending to find a partner to dance with, to be brave, that was the plan. I talked with friends at first, Anne was there at the start but she had stormed out. Some prank they had played. I knew they were going to do it, maybe if I had stopped them she could have been there. Could have protected me." Sirius could feel Elena's remorse, he could see it in her physicality, for the first time since he had found out about Elena's infidelity he felt like she was being herself with him, not just as she poured her heart out to him but even her voice seemed more open. Less forced, less contrived, he was relieved that he finally felt like he knew her again.

"The next thing I remember is pain, my hips, my…" she gestured vaguely and wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling at her dress; "Inside me." she affirmed, he was at a loss as to who to help her.

"I didn't see him, hadn't for all those years, but the belt." she rubbed at her wrists, "I was in a room at a hotel and I knew what had happened, he had dressed me again but not well, my dress was inside out, my underwear…" she flushed; "gone." Sirius cleared his throat and moved toward her but she flinched away making him feel guiltier still; "I ran and I got home and I cleaned myself up and I thought that would be the end of it." her head fell then and at last it looked like she would be reduced to tears but she breathed deep and barrelled on; "but it wasn't, I missed my period." and Sirius didn't care any more, he couldn't let her go on as she dissolved in to sobs and he pulled her into his lap and she curled against his chest just like she used to and he inhaled the scent of her hair and he wasn't going to let her go as she cried, not a hope in hell. She pressed the healthy side of her face against his chest just over his heart and listened to its soft beat as she went on.

"I tried to get rid of it." she shook against him and through her hysterics she continued; "I had a wire hanger and I tried but in the end I knew I couldn't do it myself." she sniffed and her breaths trembled, her face twisted with weeping stung lightly as her tears tracked over her stitches. He shushed her and he was horrified and he didn't know what to say to her but she couldn't seem to stop;

"I found a place that said they would do it, they hurt me but it worked. I was in so much pain for so long but it worked." she pressed closer to him and he kissed the top of her head;

"When boys liked me after that and after I healed I always felt afraid and I wanted to prove to myself there was nothing to be afraid of. I brought a boy to my house and I talked with him and I gave myself and then I broke his heart and then I found another boy and another and another and it was such a relief to not be so afraid all the time. I felt like I could become someone else as long as I could control who I was with them I wasn't in any danger and I have always felt that way but now I feel something else." her tears still fell but silently, the sobbing subsided, she sniffled again and Sirius ran a hand up and down the girls back and he thought hard how he could help her.

"Something else?" he asked and she shifted back so her legs were draped over Sirius's and her bum rested on the bed so she could look at him. She traced a hand along his cheek and some of the wetness from hers;

"I didn't know someone like me could fall in love until the day you said you forgave me." she shook her head. "I thought I was getting even but I was only ever punishing myself, I see that now. I didn't do all that because I wanted you to suffer, I never wanted anyone to suffer, I just felt like it was my only choice. I felt like the guilt was all I deserved. I wanted to feel like a monster because if I'm not wrong then why did that happen to me? I was convinced that horrible things like that didn't happen to good people, they didn't happen to girls like Anne." Her thoughts seemed to fall from her mouth one after the other like she couldn't stop them like she had taken a vat of veritaserum.

"but I know what its like to be like Anne now and people don't treat her well but she is the best person I have ever met in my life. If she doesn't deserve it then maybe I don't either?" he let his hand float over her gored cheek and stared into her eyes and God he loved her, everything about her. He wondered why it had taken her so long to say this but her remembered what she had said on the phone, how she had insisted her some;

"I am so sorry Sirius. I'm sorry that I tried to break your heart, I'm sorry that I tried to break my own but I am thankful to you as well, thankful to have met you and to have known you and to have loved you. I-" He kissed her, he pulled her face forward and kissed her with all he had and she whimpered slightly against him as he hand ran into his hair and she smiled against his mouth and it was the greatest relief as she pressed herself hard to him unlike the dainty way she had touched him since he had found out.

He had to prove to her that he still loved her, that even though she was the most complex and emotionally destroyed woman he had ever met that her, her and her confidence and her courage and her warmth were all he wanted and all he would ever want and that the only thing he lacked in feeling when it came to Elena Chalk was trust and that was just good sense on his part because he had never met a better liar, not even Remus Lupin, who had his fair share of secrets.

Elena's soft lips warmed against his as he deepened the kiss and he felt his blood begin to pump hotter through his veins as her words sunk in and as he realised that Elena had trust him with something she hadn't entrusted to any other person and the thought was oddly overwhelming and he wondered what he should do as she climbed into his lap and hummed over his mouth. She would never trust him again if he alerted the authorities, if he hunted the man who had abused down but could he really do nothing. Could he really lay with her and kiss her soft mouth and whisper soft words to her and take all her trust and truth and love and do nothing? She broke away, breathless;

"Sirius, please? Don't do this." she pulled his hands off of her; "You don't have to prove anything to me or try and convince me that this ridiculous backwards version of beauty and the beast has a happy ending. I just wanted to know if you would still love me if you knew that tonight I finally look on the outside how I am on the inside." and she let her head fall against his chest as she said this and she moved smoothly out of his arms and toward the door.

"I suppose, because you forgave me once I had hoped you might but if you can't look at me anymore." she looked in the mirror and winced before turning the door knob; "If you can't love me anymore, knowing who I am, really knowing I understand. I just hoped that you would decide that the girl you loved was a big enough part of the person that I actually am to still kiss me like I meant something, love me like you have, but even though I didn't deserve what happened to me that doesn't mean I deserve someone as incredible and as wonderful as you Sirius." She looked down at the ring on her finger and placed a hand gently over her abdomen. She pulled the ring off and placed it on the vanity with an air of finality.

"You deserve better and I won't deprive you." she moved out through the lounge which looked to have been cleared of glass and blood and sat shakily on the wicker love seat flanked on either side by two more which were identical and facing the bar. The room smelled of whiskey and so, she realised a moment later, did Sirius.

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**A/N: Thanks for reading and PLEASE REVIEW! There had been an eery silence on line lately... **


	18. Ambush

**Chapter 18**

**Ambush**

"Elena I still have to tell you something," he stood in the bedroom door and only moon light leaked in around them. He looked beautiful, Elena noted, but she couldn't have him. She should never have had him or anyone else. The world would have gotten on much better without her.

"You don't owe me anything Sirius." she whispered and his voice resonated from the door by which he still remained;

"It's my fault you got hurt." he told her and she ran a hand over her face. "After you fainted I caught you hand you were fine and I sat you there, where you are sitting now and I was cleaning up the glass and then there was a knock on the door." she wondered if it had been Anne for no one else really called on her except Lily who had been coming to speak with Anne when she was in Elena's body about wedding plans.

"I didn't fall on the glass?" Sirius shook his head;

"It was my friend, Lily's husband, James. He was all cut up, I…" he cleared his throat and stared toward the door; "Someone had attacked his house and apparently there were more of them, someone had gone after Remus and James said he had gotten rid of him before he could hurt him and that he had come here after to warn us and then they came." Elena sat straighter in her chair and Sirius stared at her, rigid with guilt;

"Who came?" she asked and he shrugged.

"There was a fight and I knew I should have let James deal with them and gotten you out of there but I couldn't leave him, James is like my brother. One of them saw you and these man was completely unstable and I tried to stop him but I.. James." he looked lost and Elena stood;

"You feel bad because you chose James over me?" she asked and Sirius looked distraught;

"Elena I love you, if I thought for a moment you were in any real danger I, if something had happened…" he trailed off and Elena noted the pile off glass which had been partially swept round the side of the bar, telltale blood dried on to its menacing glinting edges;

"But something did happen." she pointed out and Sirius crumpled slightly, he seemed so young.

"It's my fault." He mumbled bitterly and Elena looked away from him;

"Stop it Sirius, you can't change what you did by sulking." in her peripheral vision she saw his head snap to face her; "Are you ok? Those men, they didn't… James? Is he?" Sirius took another step toward her and then stopped;

"I'm fine, James too, it's just, that decanter, there was something about it, I couldn't help you. The Doctor said it was an odd type of wound." Sirius was forced to dance frustratingly around the facts as he recounted what Elena had missed.

After she had fainted James had alerted him of a pending attack by some ex Deatheaters who were still deluded into thinking he who must not be named was alive and in hiding. Apparently they had sent Greyback after Remus and James had to fight him out of a muggle apartment block no less before James had eventually managed to trap the creature at a train station that had been out of service for the last few months.

Expecting to easily out number Sirius two to one MacNair and the Carrow sister had busted down the door to Elena's cottage and thundered in grinning menacingly. It had been fast. Carrow was fast and had James on the defence with a few lucky hexes. Sirius on the other hand was making short work of MacNair before the black cloaked villain had hauled the limp Elena up by the neck and pressed a wand to her jugular;

"Whose this little mud blood?" MacNair had teased as Sirius tried to defuse the situation but then Carrow started cackling;

"Sirius!" James called to him and Sirius instinctually turned to assist his friend and there was a dull thud as MacNair threw Elena to the side. Sirius just about managed to disarm Carrow as she began to phrase her killing curse, his spell hitting her with enough force to send her flying back and collide with the door frame with a hollow thunk. In a heartbeat James turned to look over Sirius's shoulder just in time to leap across and block a stream of purple light MacNair had shot toward his friend and Sirius, catching Carrows wand in his hand turned with it and used it to cast a stupefy on MacNair with a flourish, the room momentarily illuminated with the gush of red light which dissipated as the two men relaxed simultaneously.

"Well shit." James whispered still buzzing with adrenalin and Sirius laughed wildly with the relief for a moment before a sense of dawning trepidation built in his gut and he flew across the room.

"Get them out of here James." he had blurted and his best friend removed the bested Deatheaters with a pop leaving Sirius to pull his fiancé off of the ground and reveal the deep wounds which the crystal from the broken bottle had opened along her face. The blood ran into her hair and his gut twisted as he bit his lip and flicked his wand to removed anything foreign form the scarlet cuts.

It took several moments for him to realise that the healing charms he was performing didn't help to mend her flesh and as he tried everything he knew in the end he was forced to call the muggle doctor he knew lived next door. Magic wasn't working and he had a feeling he knew why as he stared at the crystal decanter and as he let it pierce his finger he was sure it carried a dark curse.

He focussed his wandering mind and was met with Elena's concerned soft blue eyes;

"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling me the whole truth?" Elena quizzed the dashing man as he stared off into space, guilt marring his features. He cleared his throat.

"I can't loose you Elena." he eventually whispered and she let go of his inability to trust her; "I love you." he told her truthfully and she wanted so much to believe him.

"But you don't want to marry me." she added to his confession and he walked toward her then, sitting down beside her as she settled onto the chair, "I wouldn't want to marry me." He tipped her chin toward him and shook his head.

"Put this on." he ordered her as he put the ring in her hand; "and don't ever change." he added before he kissed her chastely;

"I adore you." she whispered over his mouth and he laughed lightly, happily, relief washing over him as for a moment he felt as if everything was as it should be before he stood and made his way quickly toward the door. "I adore you." she called out loudly as if to let the world know and Sirius stopped at the door and she turned around to face him as he left in the middle of the night and she smiled this completely dazzling smile that he had never seen her smile before and he thought for a moment his heart would stop at her beauty even as the very open wounds along her cheek rippled and even though he knew she had the potential to be so devastatingly cruel in that moment she was more then he could ever ask for and their was no other person he more wanted to be carrying his baby or becoming his wife. He let the door close just as her gaze fell back to the ring in her hand and he looked up at the full moon and sighed, hoping Remus would be ok, he decided to join him for the latter part of the night and turned on the spot, vanishing from sight with a pop.

Inside Elena slipped her ring back on her finger and bit her lip, for the first time since she was five years old Elena felt safe and for the first time since Elena was fifteen, she felt truly happy.

"I'm free." she whispered into the night before she returned to her bed, drunk on love.

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**A/N: Forgive her yet?**

**Thanks for reading and please review!**


	19. Silver Lining

**Chapter 19**

**Silver Lining**

_(Anne returns to her body)_

Remus glanced out the window at the blue sky and felt a jolt run through his middle. He had let time get away from and he felt the hair along his spine, he felt dread rising in his throat, his eyes slowly became drawn to the clock hanging over the kitchen window of their own accord. He had just over half an hour, he packed Anne's things for her and stood at the table. Feeling the weight of time oppress his thoughts as he awaited her return. Her scent permeating the entirety of the small flat and he knew this would be a difficult moon.

There was a quiet click from the other side of the room and he watched as Anne emerged from the small toilet suite rather stiffly. Her eyes wandered curiously around the room until she eventually landed on the trembling man by the small dining table;

"Remus." she gasped and he stood away from the table taking a step towards her and her air of spring that rested like dew on her skin. He knew his eyes would be frighteningly close to black at this point as his pupils dilated. Where were James and Sirius? They didn't usually leave it this late, he had thought it would be easier to clear Anne out once they arrived.

"Perhaps we should finish this another time Anne, I think I have come over with something." he swayed a little and cleared his throat, Anne quickly cleared the space between them and stood mere inches away. She seemed exhilarated;

"The full moon." she muttered as if by way of an explanation and Remus felt more panic radiate through his mind, how could she have known? She cleared the space between them and was wrapped around him before he fully registered her movements. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her body pressed to his and she laughed so wholly and with such exuberance over the side of his shoulder that he joined her, absurdly and for just a moment forgetting about his fears. His hands trailed lightly up her back to return the embrace, Anne Chalk was happy, what a terminally distracting thought and when she pulled just a bit away from him her smile was so full he didn't know what to say. The moon muddled with thoughts, his mind honed in on the scent of her sweet breath.

The impulsivity that came with his condition at times such as these meant his mind only caught on to each action a moment later as his hands ran down along her subtly curving waist and a smile broke across his own weary mouth, The loss of control drove him forward as he asked her to explain her sudden ecstatic humour.

"Anne?" but this only seemed to make her buzz, her entire body seeming to shake with excitement as she nodded quickly and laughed. Her eyes looking close to watering.

"Yes, Anne, Anne Chalk, at last." she stopped nodding and seemed to take a deep breath, collecting herself before in an awed whisper she asked him; "Isn't this just how it should be?" and because he couldn't possibly know that Anne Chalks incredible joy came from the uncanny relief of being allowed to once again stand on her own two feet in her own body (even if her eyelashes were laced with goopy mascara) Remus Lupin laughed lightly at her open welcoming expression and he kissed her, just like that.

Her lips soft and smiling, his heart pounding in his chest and her scent every where and Anne to her surprise was over taken with the feeling, the feeling of being Anne Chalk being kissed and being wanted as Anne Chalk and not under the guise of her sisters beauty. Then as she fell into the kiss something else happened. She felt the man on the other end, who smelt of dust and books and earth and her heart picked up as he lured her into a fiery consuming kiss that was entirely unexpectedly coming from the sinfully demanding mouth of shy bookish Remus Lupin.

Inhibitions lost Remus growled against her as she pulled him closer and he hooked her leg around his waist, his hands roaming of their own accord, feeling the soft athletic sinew of Anne's shivering exhilarated body. She had never been kissed like she was kissed by him that night before, she was immediately breath-takingly lost to the sandy haired mans unyielding passion. Her relief and pleasure at returning to her body only adding to heighten the experience as her thoughts flitted uselessly between the lustful punishing kiss she had received from Sirius, the man who took everything from her and this kiss now which felt like it was giving an ever so small amount of who Anne Chalk always hoped she was back to her to cherish.

Miraculously her blood actually began to flow hotter in her veins at this point and she gasped audibly against Lupins mouth as she realised that perhaps Sirius Black wasn't _it _for her, maybe he wasn't the only one. Unfortunately this thought was immediately pushed to the farthest reaches of the blue eyed womans brain for as soon as she gasped softly against his warm slightly chapped lips Remus jerked back panting against her bruised mouth and with his hand pressed over her pounding heart, the other tangled in her hair reality came crashing back down on him and he cursed himself for forgetting that he was not a man just because he was at a point when he was so close to the beast.

Still Anne felt the whispers of the part of her that she couldn't control, that part of her that loved what it wanted whether she wanted it to or not, the part of her heart that broke her up everyday because of him was suddenly dissolved. It had fallen away and in its place she stood, just her, the girl she had to fight to find and fight to hide ever since she had fallen from her bike. She felt like for the first time in a long time that all really was right with the world.

"You have to go." he whispered and then any inkling of the liberation his mouth had brought was stolen right back, still struck speechless as she met his urgent gaze, she felt a flush of something unanticipated. His amber eyes radiated desire, his breath hot and his mouth still held a ghost of a smile where as his voice was penetrating and pleading. He was so entirely unexpected. He took a step away from her, she felt goose bumps rise along her arms as his hand brushed over her tingling skin before he placed her satchel in her hand and turned his back to her.

"You have to go." he repeated and as she glanced down to see her bag in her hand not sure how he had gotten it there his words finally made it through the goo in her brain to register;

"You expect me to just go now?" she asked, knowing she might have only so long in her body and that she needed to take this time to decode the mind numbing force that she had found in this unpredictable man.

"That's exactly what I expect." and he turned to her with a snarl and grabbed her wrist, dragging her toward the door and he threw her out, roaring in an almost animalistic fashion; "Go!" before wincing and slamming the door behind her. He tried to push the site of her expressive eyes out of his mind. Tried not to think of her smile of how she looked at him like she actually _wanted _him. He was not a man, he hated it, he despaired for it but Remus had only ever been two things, first he was a little boy and then he was a monster. Never a man. He could hear her heart pound from the other side of the thin door and he warded it thoroughly leaving it so only James and Sirius could apparate out, he left the silencing charm till last selfishly letting her presence outside the door keep him company for a few extra stolen moments.

Anne stood, dumbstruck in the hall. Her heart still pounding with her bag clutched to her chest as if to muffle the noise. Still disorientated from being shoved home into her own body. She turned and reached out for the door knob but when she touched it the metal was so heated it caused her to cry out in pain and she pulled her raw hand to her chest. She had no coat and the night had seemed on the verge of bitter.

She sneered at the door, what on earth had that been about anyway? _He_ had kissed_ her_, she pressed her still warm hand to her cool forehead; she had kissed him back. She couldn't believe it, she had kissed him back and it had stolen all her reason. He had, for all intense and purposes, seduced her and then left her wanting. She blushed as she looked up and down the narrow door lined corridor, he had truly left her wanting. She stared at the door for another moment, lifting her hand to knock but then thought better of it. Remus Lupin was stark raving mad and she refused to find it endearing.

Had Elena started this? Had Elena kissed him when she was Anne? She blushed at the thought, and if she hadn't, then how was Lupin's demanding and lust inducing assault to be excused? She swallowed against a dry lump that had formed in her throat. She had never felt sexier, Sirius's caresses may have turned her on like nothing else, his mere presence made her heart beat harder and her thoughts to become muddled and he could make her body surrender to his practiced touch with annoying ease but he didn't simply make her loose all reason like Lupin did, she had never lost her mind to him but Lupin's snarling lust had claimed her completely for a few brief moments. Had blissfully stolen her away from herself and left her in some place of bliss where for once it made sense to feel. She lifted her hand toward the handle again and let it drop, the moment had passed and his hold on her loosened as she breathed therapeutically.

She eventually mustered up the strength to turn away from the door of his flat and tried to find the exit. The hall ended on one side with a window and on the other side with a lift. She gently shook her head as she reached the end of the hall and as she waited for the lift and stepped in she saw it was lined with mirrors. Elena must have applied some lip stick before she had gone to Remus's Anne observed and watched a flush dance across her skin as she noted the scandalously smudged state of the cosmetic. She wiped at the sides of her mouth and felt another smile break across her lips as she looked at her own face in the mirror.

She wondered how she had ever taken being herself for granted, she would never be able to bring herself to envy her sister again. The rickety lift pinged as she reached the bottom floor and she stepped into the hall. She felt further jarred at simply being cast out by Remus like that and she wondered how she ever could have read him so wrong. He had seemed so polite, scholarly, meek, shy even. She thought of their previous encounters as she undid the doors latch and stepped into the cool night air. She wished she could have at least had the opportunity to ask where she was before he had so ungraciously cast her out. She walked out onto the street and slipped her satchel on over her shoulder. She saw a tall broad man walking toward the entrance to Remus's block of flats and called out to him;

"Sir? I was wondering if you could give me directions to the nearest bus stop, please?" She smiled broadly and realised she was still stained with some of the habits she had adopted when impersonating Elena. The man stopped and tilted his head toward her;

"You stink of him." the man remarked in a voice like a growl and she blanched, her feet stilled as the man cleared the space between them; "My little Remus. You stink of him, looks like he was getting ready to claim you my little she-wolf." and Anne recoiled slightly, the man stepped into the orange light cast by one of the street lamps and grinned a savage grin. His breath filled the air between them with the smell of rancid meat. Anne doubled her grip on her satchel, preparing to smack the monstrous man over the head with it. He took a step closer to her and sniffed theatrically before he allowed the light to flash on his yellow eyes;

"Decadent," he growled lowly; "Fear." he finished and nothing but a whimper escaped her lips as Anne swung her satchel and caught him on the edge of his head before she sprang forward and sprinted back toward the apartment block. The man grunted behind her and began a hot pursuit on the surprisingly speedy muggle girls heels.

"Remus!" she screamed through her controlled practiced breathing. Her usually co-ordinated movement stunted by her lack of adjustment to her own proportions but she kept running determinedly. She was momentarily relieved to find the front door of the block of flats opened as she turned the handle and she closed it behind her slowing the hunter marginally and allowing her to clear the first flight of stairs and clamber for the next before a crash emanated from below;

"Remus?!" she screamed again as the man called taunts after her;

"Lupin will have himself all holed up by now my lovely," his feet thudded along the stairs; "won't be wanting to have any fun, he hates to play." he was huffing as she looked over the edge of the landing and caught his eye on the floor below, but Anne didn't know what he meant with this and couldn't possibly know as she tore herself out of sight of the predatory stare and reached the familiar corridor leading to Remus's apartment. She couldn't know that the roaring coming from the staircase was caused by the moon breaking the horizon not to far off and the transformation tearing along the rippling flesh of the revered serial killer Fenrir Greyback.

She couldn't know that it was no longer a man pursuing her as she pleaded and hammered at Remus's door and it was this pleading that was the last thing Remus heard before the wolf tore its way out of his feeble body, it was with her almost company and the concerned thought that James and Sirius weren't going to come that plagued his thoughts as the beast began to tear at the walls and tear hungrily with tooth and claw at the jacket that had been left behind by the woman the wolf had for so long sought out.

The very woman who now stood in the corridor outside, petrified as the sound of a high skin crawling howl breached the silent apartment block, a door along the hall behind her opened and a moustached man stuck his head out with a cantankerous expression;

"Some of us have work in the morning you know you…" his scowl fell away as he exclaimed and slammed the door shut, not even seeing Anne, only noting the other end of the hallway taken up almost completely with a hulking beast whose yellow eyes flashed out at her with eerie familiarity.

It growled and pawed at the ground, each of its shoulders almost brushing the walls and Anne thought that this may be her only advantage in escaping the beast. Its bulk might make its attack awkward.

It reared back and she anticipated its spring forward, her eyes fixed on its heavily salivating mouth, its lip curled back aggressively to reveal terrifying teeth. She felt her body tense with potential energy as the wolf lowered and made its second bound toward her, prepared to clear the last of the space between them and as it vaulted forward Anne lithely pressed herself to the side and with her foot directed the beasts great stinking head toward Remus's door and heard the anticipated sizzle of burning flesh a moment later as the door knob which had burned her hand earlier caught the wolf at its neck causing it to yelp. The stench of burning hair permeated the air and Anne used the wolf as leverage to rise herself against the wall as she held it in place with one foot and kicked it twice in the head with the other before springing down onto the writhing beasts flank and hoping to sweet heaven that the creature was to big to turn but as soon as she released the weight from the monster its struggles went from fruitless to urgent. It had underestimated her once but now as it struggled to turn there would be no room for manoeuvre on Anne's part, when it faced her once more it bounded down the hall determinedly and she pressed the button on the lift again and again urgently until it was the beast in front of her and her back trapped against the stainless steal doors.

"Oh God, this could only ever happen to me," she whispered as she realised this may very well be her last moment on earth and she thought for a moment, on Sirius Black and his broadest smile that he would never smile for her and her niece or nephew on the way who she had carried for such a short while and all she would never do and of her sweet misguided sister who had mad so many mistakes but who really only wanted to be loved and for just a moment of Remus Lupin and a smile that she had put on his face and that felt like hers and she called for him again, knowing he wouldn't come;

"Remus, please?!" it lunged and the wolfs jaw closed around her hip and she screamed in pain and mortal fear and the door of the lift pinged open and asked her to select her floor and she fell back against the ground hard and the wolf caught its head on the side and released her momentarily before biting again into her thigh and growling loudly as Anne struggled but as she clawed at the monsters muzzle and her blood stained its razor teeth she noted her twisted chain bracelets leaving light imprints on its fur and the sizzling rose again as it began to drag her from the lift and in a desperate leap of understanding Anne released the mutts jaws and reefed her silver bracelet from her wrist and with her thumb jammed it into the wolfs eye causing a laceration to form where ever the bracelet touched around its socket and as it whimpered and drew back Anne smiled ridiculously and pulled her mangled body into the lift reaching up and pressing the close door button again and again furiously.

The doors began to slide together until eventually just as the wolf seemed to find its bearings there was only the slightest sliver of its undamaged yellow eye visible to Anne and as it reared back the doors sealed reducing the impact to not but a loud thud as the cool voice from above told her once more to select her floor.

She pressed the lowest button and as the lift began to shift she managed to hit the alarm bell stopping its progress between floors and linking her through to the buildings security office from which the only noise coming over the intercom was the soft snore of the lazy security guard. Anne felt her body slacken across the bottom of the lift as she panted and she tried to call out but instead she just sobbed and sobbed. Pathetic keening guttural whinging little noises shamelessly escaped her throat one after the other until the hysterics inevitably and she couldn't seem to rise up much panic in her heart as she was surrounded by a pool of her own dark blood.

The bite on her hip was clean enough but the one on her thigh badly gored and bleeding profusely, she wished she had struggle a little less and wondered pathetically if she would ever win a decent round at fencing again with such an injury. Assuming she didn't bleed out then and there. Propping herself up against the side of the lift she pulled her shirt over her head and pressed down against her wound, wiping impatiently at what was left of her tears and trembling in her shock she allowed her quivering hands to not the cloth around her leg and smiled numbly as it seemed to help a lot. Making her flesh itch and showing that the blood might clot to seal the wound well enough.

"I'm alive." she said allowed to the gentle breath of the man over the intercom. "Please," she called louder and glanced suspiciously at her hip which already yellowed along the edge of a blushing bruise like it was days old "I'm ok." her already seemed to be fighting the injuries at an inhumane pace and she thought of the man and she thought of the wolf and she thought of the silver and she looked at her wrist and saw she was slightly raw where the bracelet had been. If her and Elena could switch places then maybe; she groaned as her muscled twitched and adjusted; "Anything's possible." she hissed and her heart began to hammer in her chest, but then why did this feel so much like a dream? And she lay her head down and tried desperately to wake up.

* * *

**A/N: PLOT TWIST!**

**Hope you don't mind, I just thought, well. I just wanted to twist the plot really and so yeah PLOT TWIST**

**let me know what you think! **

**Thanks for reading and please REVIEW! **


	20. Shock

**A/N: Thankyou so much for your support! this is short and probably riddled with mistakes because I wrote it through the night but anyway this one goes out to Ms. TonksLupin for being completely excellent. **

**Chapter 17**

**Shock**

James Potter was not a complicated man, he liked things to be straight forward. He like to get things done, he was a man of action and so the inaction he had been experiencing at home in Godrics Hollow over the last months was beginning to wear on his nerves. He was ansty, he wanted out, so even though it was a ridiculous thing to anticipate James was looking forward to this full moon. It reminded him of his days at Hogwarts which he liked to look back on because they had been straight forward. Everyone knew exactly where they were and where they were headed. Sirius was going to devastate and divest women every chance he got, James was going to win Lily and save the world, Remus would carry out his days as an unassuming scholar and Peter would stay by them all, like their number one fan. Of course that was then and life had gotten progressively more complicated since except for one thing that would forever unite them.

The wolf that lived in Remus was their responsibility, their burden to bare and even though this moon was to be rather solitary James felt at peace with this particular confrontation. Mumbling along to Talking Head's 'Psycho Killer' James apparated into a familiar nook by the entrance to Remus's flat and marched up the steps to the door which was bizarrely slightly ajar. When he pushed the door open his body instantly tensed, a great grimy wolf stood pawing violently at the lift before raising its head slightly to sniff the air. Shaking out of his shock just as the wolf turned and noted its presence he shifted quickly into a stag, crouching threateningly to brandish antlers that were nearly as broad as the foyer. The wolfs one good yellow eye flashed and James recognised it then as Fenrir Greyback. An ally to the Deatheaters and the werewolf that had turned Remus when he was just a boy. For a moment he panicked about Lily's safety alone in the Hollow, his mind quickly looking for a pattern or strategy that would have led to synchronised attacks the violent blood purists were so fond of. Fortunately that night his family would not be alone. Lily had invited Hagrid over, the hulking half giant had been on the edge of his seat to meet his son ever since the news of his arrival reached him.

The wolf abandoned his assault on the metal doors of the lift and crouched low, one of its eye badly disfigured looking blistered and burnt, the injury looking fresh despite a werewolfs ability to regenerate physically with incredible speed. James caught the side of the door beside him with a well aimed kick causing to open as wide as it could and prepared to remove Greyback from the building. He further regretted being late to meet Remus as the wolf lurched forward. James caught the wolf with its snapping jaw with the side of his antler and just about managed to fend him off to a point that the disturbingly bloody teeth of the monster didn't close around the back of his gracefully arched neck. Leaping forward again the wolf managed to get enough leverage to push James toward the door and as Greyback pummelled forward Prongs was forced far enough out the entrance way that his back leg could longer find purchase have reached the stair. Fortunately it was impossible to completely removed the stag from the building as his antlers caught on either side of the door. Allowing the snarling salivating beast to press all its force against the edge of his antler in an attempt to close its mouth around his lean flesh James then made a small braying grunt before turning his hazel eyes to the wolf single wild yellow. The moment broke and James phased to a man causing the wolf to vault forward under its own pressure and stumble down the granite steps of the entrance way. When the wolf sprung back to its feet at the bottom James was quick to petrify it and send it into the shadows to be dealt with when the sun came up.

Turning into the house, breathing hard and flushed James managed to keep his cool. He had never been good at panicking for his own safety and tried to remind himself once again that it wouldn't do to miss his son growing up before turning heading toward the muggle lift and, enjoying the novelty, pressing the button to bring it down. There was on response and he frowned as he pressed the button again but it didn't light up. Eventually shrugging and climbing the stairs James reached Remus's floor before he realised there was something terribly wrong going on. A still damp trail of blood traced around the edge of the muggle lift and as he approached it he realised there was a small picture of a belle lit up beside the button that summoned the metal box to your floor. Frowning slightly James tapped the button and muttered;

"Revelio." The lift responded with a light ping and with a disconcerting clanking the doors opened to reveal a weakened woman propped against the back wall. Her thigh clumsily bound with a bloodied piece of materiel which he assumed to be her top since she wasn't wearing one. Her dreamy blue eyes looked up at his and suddenly James did manage to feel panic.

"James?" The woman asked and not sure how she knew him the messy haired man just stepped mechanically into the lift and knelt down beside her to inspect her wound.

"James?!" she repeated more demanding and he turned to her feeling sick;

"Yes?" he asked and she gulped audibly;

"You need to get out of here, there is a monster or something, a wolf. It did this to me, it'll kill you." James shook his head and ran through his options. He couldn't believe this had happened to her. Even if she survived the damage caused by the wound she wouldn't last long. Women who got bitten never did, never mind muggle women.

"I'm not leaving you." he told her and she shook her head putting a cold shaking hand over the one he had rested gingerly on her thigh. It was definitely a bite.

"Think of Lily, you can't let yourself get hurt." she echoed his thoughts eerily, suddenly he knew what to do. Lily was a junior healer at Mungos and a damn good one. Trying not to dwell to much on the strangely familiar strangers knowledge of his life James scooped her up and prepared to apparate home.

"Try not to be alarmed Miss., something strange is about to happen." but the woman's body started to shake and James was slightly alarmed before he realised she was laughing rustily;

"Nothing could be strange to me anymore." she cracked out and his frown deepened before he wondered if they had sent someone after Sirius before turning on the spot and vanishing with a pop.

"Lily?!" he called once he was in the guest room of their home and he lay her on the bed. She whimpered lightly but then sighed as she relaxed against the support. He heard Lily excuse herself from the other room before she rushed into the room Harry for once conspicuously absent from her hip.

"James?" she took grazes and bruises tracing along his skin that she was sure he hadn't even noticed were there yet before she turned to see Elena's sister Anne bleeding on the bed, her eyes barely open as her head lolled against the pillow, the full moon playing disturbingly off of her bloodied fingertips. "What happened?" the shocked mother asked and James looked more confused then she did;

"She was bitten." he told her running his hand through his hair before turning back to her and biting his lip; "I have to go." he rushed out and Lily crossed the room to Anne and pointed her wand toward the door causing a whole menagerie of items to float in as she snapped into Healer mode. He didn't bother with an explanation as he went to check on Sirius and Lily barely turned as she began to tend to Anne who whispered softly from the bed;

"It was a werewolf." Lily sighed frustrated, the replenishing potion taking patchily to the wound. She turned to Anne and nodded solemnly before trying a different consistency. Anne shuddered beneath her and then cleared her throat. "When it was a man he had scars just like… Remus? Is he?" and Lily said nothing and Anne took this as a yes and tried not to think of the searing pain and the pace of her heart and the irregularity of breath in her burning lungs. "I will be to won't I, if I'm ok?" her voice sounded strong considering her state and Lily hoped she would be ok as she tipped a potion down her throat and nodded before saying;

"This will help with the pain, maybe a bit of the shock too." and Anne groaned against it as it slipped down her throat because God that stuff was **magical **and the pain slipped away and with slightly glazed eyes she reached and clutched weakly at Lily's hand though she was using all her strength.

"I _don't_ want them to know Lily." she whispered hoarsely and Lily Potter stared at Anne's ruined body and wondered if she would make it till dawn.

"Ok. I won't tell." she promised and Anne nodded before closing her eyes and becoming still.

* * *

**A/N: So I hope you like this and let me know what you think!  
Thanks for reading and please review**


	21. Dawn

**A/N: NO TIME! should not have written this... hehe enjoy!**

**Dawn**

When the next day dawned Padfoot was lying asleep snuffling gently from his place on the tattered sofa and Remus was crouched on the floor breathing hard and streaked in blood. Still shaking from his transformation he tried to push away the overwhelming yearning that always overtook him after the full when he was so close to the wolf. The feeling that life had something more to offer him, that he was worth more, that he was Remus, just Remus. It was the only time in his life where, despite the incredible physical pain and the heat of his skin and the rasp of each breath he didn't feel despair. The only time when he wasn't resigned to his fate but rather rearing to fight it. He lies on his back on the floor and feels the odd elation sink away and his heart quietens down as mercifully and yet heartbreakingly, hope fell away.

The dust settled and his mind returned to him; Anne had smiled at him, Anne had kissed him. Remus frowned, he was not put together for long term relationships and yet he somehow doubted that Anne had a fling in mind. It had been easier to be besotted with her when she was unachievable but now that she reciprocated his feelings on however small a level it was down right dangerous. Just thinking of last night, what he had done in the impulsive fog before the full made him curse himself bitterly. Scowling at the chipped plaster of the ceiling Remus let a few tears stray, he knew they would come, ever since he was a boy they had. His mother used to wipe them away but now he did himself. Swiping them away stubbornly before he sniffed and pushed himself into a sitting position.

"What did you think?" he berated himself; "That this month would be different?" and he pushed himself up off the ground with a grunt. Stepped carefully around the room, bending slowly to retrieve his wand from its place, safe underneath one of the floor boards.

"Oh Jesus fucking Christ Moony would it kill you to get dressed before you start waving your arse around?" Sirius groaned from the couch and Remus snuffled out a laugh, moving his hands to his bruised rib and grimacing through the sharp pain.

"Well you can look for free but I'm afraid anything more than that will cost you." Remus pointed out and Sirius stood from the couch to stretch theatrically before turning to the worn Remus and loosing a trademark wink;

"That's not what you said last night." and Remus shook his head as he waved his wand and summoned a pair of pyjama trousers which he promptly slipped on.

"Last night I was a bloody werewolf." he groused and Sirius began to work on repairing the sofa.

"Is that extra?" he asked and they laughed a little more;

"Where is James?" Remus asked and Sirius stared at him looking confused.

"James who?" he asked and Remus raised an eyebrow before giving in;

"James Potter, wears glasses, can turn into a stag at will, you know, that James?" Sirius continued to work on the carpets upholstery as he shrugged;

"Never heard of him."

"Giant swollen head?" Remus asked as if he was just trying to be helpful and Sirius smacked his hand to his forehead;

"Oh, that James, yeah he is over behind the kitchen counter somewhere." He waved his hand around the general area of where James had fallen asleep away from the two canines. "Why? You want to hang stuff on his antlers while he is asleep or something?"

"No I was just wondering where he was, you two were late last night." Remus added, rolling his eyes as Sirius went to go bully Prongs till he woke up.

"Yeah there was a bit of trouble, where do you keep the dirty washing?" Sirius asked as he stared down, presumably at the sleeping stag with an oddly solemn expression as if truly assessing how many pairs of worn briefs he could balance on the stag before disturbing his sleep.

"My clothes are all clean, I do the washing on Thursdays." Sirius rolled his eyes and in a poor imitation of Remus responded with a;

"Oh do you really do your washing on Thursdays, I hear they have a two for one on Wednesdays." before reaching his hand into his jeans for a moment and pulling it out again frowning, "Well I'm not wearing any." he pouted. Sirius eventually settled for just kicking James on the side of the head causing the animagus to release a grumpy bray and stumble to his feet catching one of his antlers in Remus's lighting fixture. The stag shared a reproachful look with Sirius and then promptly turned back into a grimacing James.

"Git." he grunted, smacking Sirius in the side of the head before nodding to Remus; "Well put the sodding kettle on anyway don't just stand there grinning like a gorgon." and the mop of messy hair on top of his head seemed to sway with him as he made his way to the couch. Remus looked at his two friends and felt a little guilt tug along his stomach at their pale and lightly bruised faces. They looked rough, the wolf must have been angry.

"On another note Mooney," Sirius marched in from the kitchen to hand the bare-chested lycanthrope a sugary tea, "it stinks of woman in here, something you're not telling us mate?" there was a knock at the door and the men turned sharply. Remus felt goose bumps raise up along his skin as James cast a cooling scourgify on his blood stained skin. The scarred man then moved to answer the door. Peaking through the peep hole he saw an expanse of flaming red hair and relaxed.

"It's Lily." he informed them as he began to work on the wards from the night before and as if it wasn't the woman he lived with and shared a bed with James looked alarmed and immediately scraped his hands through his hair and breathed a fog onto his glasses before slamming them back onto his face just as Remus pulled back the door.

"Remus." she said warmly stepping forward and taking him into a protective hug, "I'm so glad you're ok." she released him and stepped far enough back to inspect him properly before pulling a green potion from the pocket of her denim dungarees and tipping it into his tea. She patted his cheek and smiled before growing more stern and directing the cup to his mouth; "Drink up." she ordered and then moved over to Sirius who stood with open arms and a cheeky smile. She raised an eyebrow at him and he eventually dropped his arms and sighed;

"Right Lil." he muttered planting a stubborn kiss on her cheek and winking. He quickly nodded to an increasingly murderous looking James and blew a kiss to Remus who already appeared far improved with the help of one of Lily's revitalising tinctures before turning on the spot and disapparating with his typical casual grace. Lily shook her head at his antics before turning to James and raising an eyebrow;

"Are you still here James?" she asked and he gaped at her before sighing resignedly and muttering;

"Later mate." to Remus, he disappeared as well.

"Remus love, you need to get to bed." the battered man pushed his hand through his hair making it stick up at odd rather James like angles and nodded.

"They were late last night Lily, both of them." she shrugged and his amber eyes flitted sceptically; "Sirius said there had been trouble." he added and her gaze fell away under his scrutiny making him panic slightly; "What happened?" he asked and Lily took his empty cup from him. She had spent the early morning hours purging the building of any evidence of Greyback's attack on Anne and she had promised that no one would know but James and herself. James had already agreed and was probably downstairs shifting Greyback from the site as the two friends spoke.

"MacNair and Carrow waged an attack on Sirius, James was there though. They were just held up but they dealt with it, don't worry Remus." she admitted and she placed a few more repair charms on the surrounding furniture before turning to Remus's static figure and huffing. "Go to bed." she ordered him and he huffed lightly before heading toward his room.

"You kiss a marauder with that sensible mouth?" he teased and she smiled mischievously;

"Is that your sneaky way of asking for details about kissing James?" she asked and he wrinkled his nose as she placed her hand on her hips and frowned in faux concern; "Is there something you're not telling my Remus? Should I be worried?" Remus just shut his bedroom door as he pretended to gag.

* * *

Anne lay in her bed at home. Lily had eventually agreed to return her to her house on the condition that she continue to take three restorative potions a day and got plenty of sunshine. Apparently she was going to stay in her own body as she had woken up in it the following morning and she was relieved that she didn't have to explain the heavy bandaging of her hip to her sister or the constant dull pain which she sat still which became searing and unignorable with even the slightest shift of her leg or hip.

Therefore, so as not to have to inform her sister of her condition she was forced to try to work up the strength to move into her parlour where she knew she would inevitably have to receive her exuberant sister as soon as the blonde woke up and discovered she was still in body. She resentfully admitted defeat as she reached the seat next to her bed she sat down and though it was not quite the parlour it was still the best the former athlete could do.

Anne was surprised when Elena didn't come for the entire day. She ached in the chair pouring over Hemingway and she wondered if it was Sirius that detained her sisters but he would have lectures and then she knew something was wrong because there had to be some reason Elena wasn't leaving her house even as the university day ended. She eventually returned to bed though, tears welling up in her eyes from the stiff strain of putting pressure on her limb as she walked the agonising four steps to her bed and she slept away the aching exhaustion that seemed to consume her tensile limbs. She even layered her bed up in blankets and tried to force her ongoing fever to break. Lily had given her a book, apparently at the end of the month she would either turn into a wolf or die. That was really all it had said, she read it twice and even though she knew it well at that point she still taped it to the underneath of her bedside locker for reference along where she typically kept her diary which, as she thought of it, she had left in Elena's. Fortunately it would take only this one more night and a bubbling purple concoction that smelt of dog for her to be free to move around once more and as she choked it down, grunting in her frustration as it fought against her gag reflex unbeknownst to her seven stops of the bus away Remus Lupin was trying to find solace in the very same fact.

* * *

"Elena please come out, please let me see you." Sirius stood in his blue jeans and leather jacket at Elena's bedroom door, he had used the spare key from under one of Elena's well kept flower trimmed window boxes to get in to her. Or at least that's what he had told her after casting a sneaky alohamora. There was a little sniffle from the other side of the door as his fiancé continued with her obstinacy. Sirius on the other hand had taken a piece of her glass decanter to Borgin&Burkes and discovered that it was a classic BeautyBeast hex meaning all she needed to free her of the curse was for true love. Of course that led to the question of why she hadn't already recovered.

"Oh Sirius you should see it in the day light." she moaned; "it's so terrible. Please, don't ask me to go out like this, I can't let you see me like this." Sirius growled in frustration;

"didn't I already tell you I'm not in love with your face?" and he jiggled the handle a little more for emphasis and he wondered why doors always seemed to play such a vital role in every argument he had had recently.

"But you didn't hate my face." she objected and the disowned aristocrat narrowed his eyes on the finally panelled light oak door.

"This is ridiculous Elena I can't talk to you through a door." he yelled;

"Well good luck talking to me in person!" she shouted back and the thudding keening sound of furniture being pushed in front of the door followed.

"Elena you shouldn't be doing any heavy lifting." he ordered through the door just to be in the right and she knew it;

"Don't get all high and mighty, since when do you know anything about what is best for a pregnant woman that you didn't hear off of television."

"I don't even watch television!" he responded outraged and then realising how off far from the topic he had strayed he made a face of confusion before shaking his head and trying to get back on track. "You can't lock yourself away forever." his deep gravelly voice carried through the door softly and Elena starred at herself in the vanity she had used to barricade herself in. She wondered what had allowed her and Anne to remain in their respective bodies after the sun came up. She hoped it was because they had both seen what they needed to see to change. There was no way she would have guessed that the magic had been counteracted by the respective curses they were both now under.

Elena couldn't face Sirius for when she had woken up that morning she had realised the true extent of her injuries. She was maimed now to a point that she was no longer a beautiful woman, that was completely lost to her. Her whole face bruised and swollen. The gashes still clumsily held together with glue stitched as a slight yellowish tint to her skin where she had once radiated warmth and ethereal charisma all that remained was gore and an air of something precious having been lost.

"This how I'm supposed to look." she told herself. "This reflection suits me." her golden blonde hair whispered lightly around her as she wiped away a tear and breathed a shaky breath. The silence from the lounge became increasingly evident until somewhere off toward the back of the room the window shattered and a heavy motor cycle boot clunked onto the ground. Elena gaped at it for a moment until Sirius pulled back the curtains through the window he had just broken to glare at her.

"I told you to open the bloody door and let me in Elena!" he snarled and the wan looking blonde woman placed her face in her hands and turned away from him. Sirius frowned at her, she stood in her soft green day dress which brushed off her in layer of flattering slightly sheer chiffon allowing him to just make out the shape of her legs through the dress.

"Sirius this is incredibly inappropriate." she hissed as he clambered through the window with a disproportionate amount of grace.

"Thank you." he laughed as he crunched down on the ground on his booted foot before reaching down to swipe the other and slip it on; "Elena if you never want to be seen again why are you dressed to go out?" he asked and she shrugged.

"What else would I have done?" she asked and he grinned the signature grin that had made him infamous for all the best kinds of trouble.

"When I amn't going to see anyone I don't wear a thing." Elena snickered through one of her little stiffly sobs into her dainty injure hands;

"Nothing?" she asked as he crunched glass on his move through the room. He flung himself onto the bed aggravating the springs and kicked his boots back off once safe on the bed. Truth be told he was completely knackered.

"Not a stitch." he muttered back as he rolled over and pressed his face into her gloriously scented pillows. Elena sighed into her hand;

"You do really love me?;" she pressed him as she lowered he shaking hands and turned to face him with her torn and deformed face; "Don't you?" he stretched and pushed himself up on his elbows before looking at her sleepily;

"'course" he grunted as she smiled a watery smile at his tousled self draped unceremoniously across her bed as if nothing had changed. he thought for a moment on the curse and wondered why he couldn't heal her again as he said this. "c'mere" he added as he gestured for her to cross the floor. Insuring there was no glass on her path to the bed Elena climbed up next to Sirius as closed his eyes and sighed sleepily. She lay next to him as she always had with his arm over her shoulder and her head tucked against his chest.

"You do love me don't you?" he suddenly asked her as he smelt her hair and felt absolutely sure that his love for her was to complete for the curse to not be lifted by him. She smiled a little sadly against his chest at this and wrapped her hand around his waist. Feeling the rise and fall of his breath as she answered.

"Love isn't just words Sirius, love is a doing word, you have to love someone with everything. You have to love them by being honest with them, by doing all they need of you and by defending them." she pressed her ear against him to listen to his steady heart; "I guess what I am saying is that I am doing everything I can to love you fully now and that I hope that's enough. I hope you sacrificing what little I can for you is enough to redeem what I have done. You understand?" and Sirius was so close to the sleep he desperately needed after a night with a furious werewolf and still weighed down with the weight of Elena's heavy past he just nodded and grumbled out a soft;

"Yeah, that's lovely, very poetic." and wondered if she would be up for it when he woke up. He pulled her a little closer to ward off some of the cold blowing in from the open window and listened to her hum some muggle song until he fell asleep.

**A/N: I usually like to wait till something significant happens before I publish a chapter but sure, everyone went on as usual, that'll have to do for now!**

**Thanks for reading and let it be noted that even the slightest little short review is enough to make me dismiss my studies and foolishly throw myself into writing. Please give me that excuse and let me know what you think!**


	22. Not Anne

**A/N: LATE FOR THINGS BUT MUST POST BEEN SO LONG AAAH**

**Not Anne**

Anne woke up the following morning wincing in an expression most commonly seen on those who are supremely disappointed to be conscious. She put her forearm over her eyes for a moment and tried to think of excuses to justify another day in bed despite Lily's promise that she would be more than capable of going about her daily business by that morning. She turns and stares at the grand oak wall clock and sees that it is three minutes to nine.

"I should be allowed to pretend I don't exist till at least nine in the morning." she muttered as she turned stiffly with her right hand gently prompting her oddly numb hip to follow her. She sighed into the pillow and then groaned rather pathetically when the phone rang out on the other side of the room. Grabbing at the phone on her bedside locker and hearing some of the books she kept on her bedside locker clunk to the carpeted floor below her hand eventually managed to wrap clumsily around the top of the phone which she pulled to her ear stretching the spiral cord.

"Chalk." she grunted as she rolled onto her back;

"Oh good Anne," it was Elena, wonderful. "I was looking through some of your plans for the wedding and who knew you had such a knack for this sort of thing?"

"Uh-huh, is this why you called? To congratulate my ability to nod at Lily Potter?" Anne asked from her face mushed into the pillow;

"Anne are you sick? I don't think I have ever heard you sounding so… tired?" she sounded concerned and Anne grumbled for a moment before responding;

"Maybe the switch took it out of me? I haven't really settled back to myself yet." She tried to sound more energetic with this statement knowing that her usually pragmatic demeanour did not leave much room for sluggishness and yet deciding that was going to be the first thing to change.

"Do you promise you are ok?" Anne smiled at her sisters humility, it was pleasant change.

"Of course, you?" there was a moments silence on the end of the phone.

"Actually I had an accident, I fell and landed on Aunt Jean's crystal decanter-"

"The one Sirius smashed?" she cut across;

"You were there?" her sister asked and Anne bit her lip;

"We had an argument, well he was looking for attention I think."

"You were ignoring him?"

"We both no that when he enters a room he has everyone's undivided attention, no I just couldn't see him to pay him the right sort of attention." Anne managed to swing her legs over the side of the bed and pulled at a down feather protruding from her duvet.

"You mean…?" Elena let the question hang and Anne rolled her eyes;

"No for God sake he just wanted to talk to you and try as I might I can't be bloody you no matter how much I look like you." there was a moments silence and Anne could easily visualise her sisters sentimental smile as she responded with a soft

"That's rather sweet isn't it?" to which Anne stopped mid-awkward application of socks to shoot down;

"Oh it really is, when you're sister is forced to impersonate you and sit through assault at the hands of your fiancé to keep the fact that we for some reason magically switched bodies a secret and he seems to give off the vague impression of missing you it is probably one of the most romantic things any person could hope for in life."

"Anne I need you to go to the tailors today with Remus and Sirius for the final fitting of all of your outfits for the wedding and since you seem to have such an eye for these things I need you to final check for the boys, ok?" and Anne scowled;

"Do you ever listen to me when I talk?" Anne considered standing up while still on the phone to Elena but knew she would probably make some rather pained noises while doing so and could do without the inquisition. Instead she stared miserably at her jeans on the other side of the room.

"…I was hurt when I fell." Elena eventually whispered and Anne ran her hand through her hair as she said this;

"Badly?" she pressed;

"Well I didn't need to go to the hospital;" her voice shook; "most of the harm was done to the side of my face." there was another moments silence;

"Oh." Anne muttered and Elena cleared her throat;

"Anyway Sirius doesn't seem to mind so I suppose it isn't to important. Will you go today?" and Anne closed her eyes nodding promptly. She pressed her hand to her forehead, she was burning up;

"Of course Elena, no problem." she smiled tightly;

"Brilliant." the blonde woman answered in her upbeat tone before wishing her sister the best and clicking off the line. Anne blew out a puff of air trying to imagine the plausible level of damage done to her sisters face before slowly shifting to her feet.

"Bollocks." she muttered as she stretched her leg out and it gave a menacing pop before seeming to reach a manageable level of hollow numbness. Running her hand over the heated scars Anne finished getting dressed.

Due to a lack of alternatives Anne ended up taking her bike to the tailors, finding her body ease with each press of the pedal eventually building up a furious pace pounding against the pressure of her aching body and the frustration of her ridiculous situation. When she eventually arrived at the tailors she was flushed and panting and despite the ache in her heated bones she felt relief from the mental strain that was prepped to overwhelm her. For half a moment she was able to revel in it but then a familiar low whistle resonated from behind her as she bent to lock her bike to a telephone pole and she whirled around almost stumbling as her hip responded disagreeably. Sure enough, there he stood in all his glory, his broad bright grin blinding her as she continued to breath heavily from her over zealous cycling. She gulped back her exhaustion and smiled her broad Elena-smile automatically only a moments hesitation away from leaning to kiss him on the cheek. She wasn't even sure if she could miss the small physical contact she had shared with Sirius now that she had returned to her own body. The things she had experienced as Elena felt increasingly surreal as she settled back into herself, as if they had happened to someone else and she had just been a spectator.

Her face dropped as he took her hand gently in his and she just about had the presence of mind to pull her hand away, she cleared her throat;

"You ha-have a short memory." she grumbled inarticulately and then bumped past the distraction of a man toward the door of the shop but of course she would have to crash right into the controversial Remus Lupin who had been skulking in the shadow of his best friend. She gaped up at him and was marginally glad that she was already flushed as he caught her soldiers and replaced her on her feet. She scowled;

"and you shouldn't skulk Lupin." she hissed before taking a step past him and crossing her arms trying with all her might not to displace her weight on her good leg as she stormed indoors.

"Yeah _Lupin_," Sirius patted Remus on the back as he winked at him; "stop skulking."

"She's looking well, isn't she?" Remus ventured a rather lewd smirk pulling along his lightly scarred lips. Sirius just snorted and shook his head as he followed the tempestuous Anne into the boutique, she _was _looking well, softer, more open.

It was true, tearing somebody out of their body and forcing them to behave like someone completely different does rekindle an awareness of the freedom of being where one belongs. Anne had always been rather stiff and reserved since hitting puberty and for the first time since that awkwardness was absent. She was loose, in comparison to the last few days she felt as if she had nothing left to hide, she could just be Anne, the possible werewolf incredibly romantically confused feminist. Her mood soured as she stepped into the changing room, maybe she wasn't free of secrets just yet, she noted as she pulled her shirt off over her head and eyed her gored hip. Still hot to the touch and healing at a dauntingly accelerated rate the wound sat pale on her olive toned skin, Lily had done a stunning job, even the uneven mottled scar tissue couldn't detract from that.

Anne stepped out of the cubicle in a free flowing smock of cotton material that a woman with a bedraggled bun eventually emerged to fuss over;

"Step up on the marker there if you don't mind Ms. Chalk." the woman, Ethyl Anne vaguely recalled her name, was the practitioner of the bridal boutique, a measuring tape eternally rested over one shoulder and dungarees exhibiting no clue as to her formal profession. Rack upon rack of unshaped fabric surrounded them as Ethyl took Anne's measurements to apply to some of the lengths of soft blue chiffon, forming the smock accordingly. Anne held her breath as the quiet woman slipped the tape around various parts of her body moving progressively closer to her injury. Sirius and Remus emerged in tracery lined pairs of slacks and similarly chalked in coat, Remus looking slightly anxious Sirius looking classically at ease.

"Sirius stop slouching." Anne chided automatically and cursed her slip as she stood in an impression of her sister with measured posture and a tilted chin. She caught her reflection in the mirror and was disarmed by how engaging she appeared when she imitated Elena. She slackened her soldiers slightly as she caught Remus's eye.

"You really have a similar manner to your sister sometimes Annie." Sirius shook his head at the bossy woman and Anne tensed her legs under the cream slip.

"It's Anne as you very well know and so I should, she is my twin after all hard as that may be for you to grasp." she snapped defensively and for a moment she Remus looked ready to snicker at the sulking Sirius but then he paled as he turned back to Anne and gulped dryly;

"Twins?" he croaked; "you and Elena?"

"You've lost some weight." the seamstress tutted as she wrapped the tape around Anne's hips causing her to hiss a breath past her teeth as it pressed onto her tender skin. She coughed unconvincingly to cover the reaction as Ethyl removed her hands and gave her an odd look. Anne nodded at Remus then, her watery eyes meeting his wide amber ones.

"Yes of course." and Remus grabbed Sirius's arm and mumbling something indiscernible pulled Sirius through the curtain. Pulling his wand from his folded clothes next to Sirius's clumsily strewn pile of leather and denim Remus cast a quick silencing charm and turned to a bemused Sirius, pointing dramatically toward Anne in the other room he hissed;

"That's not Anne." a strange tension passed between the two men as Sirius responded with a joking smile that slowly fell in the face of the werewolf's grave expression.


	23. Temper

**A/N: MERRY ALMOST CHRISTMAS EVEN THOUGH THIS STORY IS SET IN SUMMER!**

** Temper**

"What do you mean?" Sirius asked after a faux contemplative moment in which he was actually considering exciting haircuts. His best friend pressed his face into his hand and blew out a breath of air that was typical of someone under an uncomfortable amount of stress.

"Well remember when I had to erase Anne's memory the day before she fell off of her bike?" Remus asked more to contextualise but of course you could trust Sirius to raise to the occasion and be difficult at every opportunity.

"Doesn't ring a bell." he frowned soberly and Remus narrowed his eyes at the animagus who relented; "Right, go on." the black measuring materiel rustled lightly as he folded his arms.

"Well I used a duel spell for Elena and Anne, it's for sisters, it works on a basis of hereditary connections to create a frame work to isolate and remove memories with regards to a theme, the theme here being and awareness or suspicion of magic." Sirius smiled at Remus's academic explanation that was so reminiscent of their days in school.

"So…? You meddled with both Elena and Anne's memories using some sort of sister specific spell?"

"Well yes, but that's just it, it was a memory charm engineered for siblings not twins, with twins the spell initiates a time release trauma for both of the affected parties that causes them to exchange consciousness." Sirius was by no means slow but at some point Remus had lost him.

"That's not Anne?" he asks gesturing vaguely toward the other room.

"No. It's Elena, it's been Elena since Anne fell off her bike and Elena has been Anne." he cried his voice getting progressively higher as he grimaced and he remembered the night of the full moon;

"She beat me at darts." Sirius mumbled and Remus tipped his head to the side.

"What?" he asked and Sirius looked livid as his frosty grey eyes clashed with concerned amber;

"Darts, muggle darts, I played a nearly perfect game of muggle darts and Elena beat me, well Anne did, it must have been Anne." and Remus jaw dropped;

"You lost a bloody game of muggle darts over a week ago and that is your primary concern here, what about all the other stuff those two women must have done to pass themselves off as one another! Are you saying you haven't slept with Elena since then either?" and Sirius laughed incredulously;

"The sex thing! That explains it!" he puts on a mock feminine voice as he continues to build a tantrum; "ooh Sirius let's not have sex until the wedding and kiss like virgins until the wedding while I act all snotty and it was so obviously Anne!" If Remus was honest Sirius's extreme reaction balanced him slightly, some part of his mind feeling that the fury side of things was being dealt with so it was his job to muddle through the consequences. Had he kissed Anne or Elena?

"The full moon." he whispered and turned to where Sirius had been but apparently unable to contain himself any longer (the term contain here used loosely) had taken it upon himself to thunder back into the final measuring room and have a rowdy go at Anne, or Elena as he so thought.

Remus was therefore surprised when this was followed by an almost palpable silence that only really made sense when he joined his friend in the room where Anne/Elena stood in carefully draped lengths of glazed blue chiffon that made her eyes almost iridescent only further standing out against her otherwise unremarkable face. Her light brown hair curled soft to whisper over a small dark sprinkling of freckles. An eyebrow raised at the two gaping men as Ethyl stepped out of the room to hunt in the store for varying shades of sash. Anne was momentarily afraid she had been returned to her sisters body as she received the appraising looks she had come to understand were typically evoked by Elena's soft good looks but only her own stretched lanky frame sat below her.

"What?" she asked and Sirius shook his head and remembered to be angry but Remus was completely lost as she stepped off the pedestal and crossed her arms. "Stop staring at me." she ordered and charming sort of smile stretched across Sirius's soft dusky lips.

"What? Are you jealous?" he asked and she looked completely at a loss, Elena was a fairly good liar, that came as no surprise. He took a step closer.

"What the hell are you thinking Black? Am I jealous that you are staring there catching flies while you stare at me? Do I have something on my face? Does this dress have no back or something?" she stared on expectantly, at this point Remus managed a shaky;

"You look beautiful." and Anne blanched and blushed her eyes uncontrollably drawn to his.

"Very helpful Moony." he shook his head;

"Listen _Anne _while we are all here together, future family as we are, I think maybe we should do a little sharing." he stepped closer to her, placing himself at a distance that Anne would call dangerously close;

"Fine." she responded, shrugging, a slight smile playing at her mouth as she gave Remus a look that presented just how ridiculous she found Sirius's behaviour but the sandy haired mans gaze was no less heated making her quickly break away.

"Right," a far too brilliant smile from Sirius was her only warning before he asked; "Anything you want to get off of your chest dear sister?" he asked and she took a step back stumbling slightly, her smile falling away.

"I, well, I suppose I could be quite relieved to tell you that I am not quite so miserable these days." she smiled; "in fact there are a great number of things I would be quite relieved and equally miserable to tell you but unfortunately Sirius," she continued as she took another step back to match his step forward, backing further and further into the one hundred eighty degree mirror. "you seem to be rather too volatile a person to make an any way decent confidante." Remus snorted out a laugh at this and Sirius span to face him.

"Whose side are you on anyway Remus?" he growled, "Considering this is your fault!" he pointed out to which the werewolf bared his teeth but suddenly Ethyl rustled back into the room.

"You boys seem to fit in those templates fine," she had a row of blue silken ribbons over one arm and two tuxedos on their hangers draped over the other. Which she passed to the two boys before turning back to Anne.

"If you would step back up on the marker for me again Ms. Chalk." Ethyl prompted her and began to migrate through sashes at an alarming rate as the sound of bickering came from the other side of the curtain as the men changed. Anne tried to take in the bizarre happenings the last few minutes as she nodded and shook her head to varying widths.

Remus and Sirius stood in similar states of undress with their shirts hanging loosely on there shoulders as they slipped into there slacks and Sirius snipped out various complaints as he dressed.

"You have to admit she's good, couldn't have fooled us this long if she wasn't. Really though Remus I know you have a hard on for Anne but do you really have to stare so much, you _know _it's not her. I cant believe this after all her promises Elena is still lying but the I suppose she didn't make any of those promises." Remus just left Sirius to his tirade, sighing as he tied his tie.

"I'm sorry Sirius but Anne is just-"

"But it's not Anne is it? So stop gawking." he groused and Remus cracked out his trick knee before walking back out to the Ethyl's critique.

"Right-o Padfoot." he saluted.

Anne watched wearily as the men re-entered the room, prepared for more odd behaviour. Sirius strutted in looking predictably devastating and her eyes travelled up the excellent physique that had driven her so far to distraction over the past months. His wedding suit tapered to accentuate his flawless form, the grey of his tie subtly complimenting in his eyes in a way that was both mouth watering and so well thought out it was clearly not Sirius's doing. Her fingers itched to run over his lapels and her mouth tingled lightly at memories of his but for some reason the thought of a kiss switched her focus in a way that she would have thought impossible in the time between meeting Sirius and the full moon just the day before last. The idea that anything could tear her attention from something so gorgeous as the infamous Sirius Black would have seemed so impossible had it not been for the slight shift of weight Remus Lupin made and then her dubious loyalties were suddenly thrown into fray. That her heart for some reason seemed equally as please to note that Lupin looked just as jaw-droppingly sinful as his friend with his face in a fixed thoughtful expression and his scars barely showing in the warm artificial light of the room. Lupin seemed so kind, she thought, as her mind through her back to the edginess of her kiss and the demand in his voice. Suddenly the room seemed to rise a few degrees in temperature and as she eventually managed to break away from those whiskey eyes shamelessly assessing hers. Sirius was talking, she realised as her gaze fell to the floor, and it was such a relief to think that there was someone with the power to take her heart from Sirius Black, even if he kept it for himself.

"… you like to think you are something special don't you _Anne,_ like you are anything more then a plain bookish naïve girl who doesn't know when to quit." and Remus didn't say anything as Black and his temper raged on and she was quite numb to Sirius's cruelty at this point having seen it through Elena but to be herself and on the receiving end of it was quite another. She was surprised how much it upset her as he yelled on, as if he was waiting for something.

"What do you want me to say Black? Why are you doing this?" and he grinned manically and didn't stop even as Ethyl re-entered the room and still Remus said nothing, but he looked incredible. Anne was obviously bewildered as Sirius continued to try and goad her into announcing herself as Elena. Remus tried to stand by his friends, knowing even as numerous glances were thrown his way that this was not Anne they were actually talking too, how as he to know that he was wrong? That the reason the frightened look she exhibited reminded him so of the day he had accidentally apparated into the room she was alone in was because this was the same woman whose tears he had interrupted.

"I say that I know you are keeping something from us_ Annie_ and I think you ought to drop the poor me act and just say it already."

"Is this about my feeling f-for you?" she asked and Sirius had to redouble his approach then as her question caused him an eventual stumble;

"Yes and no, but sure let's here you confess them once more, for old times sake." and she was appalled and Ethyl let out a light squeak and it was entirely mortifying so then something in her that didn't seem at all familiar began to bubble hotly and she was furious and she snarled, practically growled;

"Right." and decided she was going to tear Sirius Blacks perfectly tousled hair off of his damn devil may care head and she lunged. The distinct sound of torn materiel followed as she pinned the wizard to the ground and the sound made Ethyl exclaim uselessly and Anne, completely unaware of the temper and her strength being effects of the wolf, began to land punch after punch across Sirius's torso.


	24. An Apology

**An Apology**

"Christ Moony, get this mad bint the fuck off of _uuff;_" she landed a solid punch to his stomach as he tried to get a firm grip on her wrists; "…me._ Fuck." _he managed but Remus wasn't sure quite how to remove her until a second later she pushed herself off of him and with shaking hands stared at the choking bruised figure below. Oddly exhilarated she gritted her teeth and kicked him in the back before turning to Remus and slapping him loudly across the face; his head whipped to the side as he gasped and she bared her teeth in a snarl;

"Don't think you're any better Lupin." she panted out and as he turned to face her looking completely taken aback she gulped as her wayward mood suddenly flushed across her body with overwhelming lust and she shivered; "You better stay away from me." she warned just as Sirius made it into a crumpled kneeling position and with tears in her eyes in her baby blue gown she stormed out, Sirius parting words following her out the door;

"_Freak."_

"Sirius." Remus chastised as he helped Sirius to his feet and found the broad pureblood to be thoroughly winded;

"So which one am I in love with?" Sirius suddenly asked and Remus shrugged; "I swear there really was something off about Elena for a while but ever since the full moon it seems like-"

"Of course." Remus hissed and Sirius lowered himself onto the podium for models as he rubbed his bruised back;

"What?" he asked and closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as he grimaced.

"The charm would have been counteracted on the full moon because of the law of forms. They had to return to their bodies same as… as the wolf." and he trailed off, Sirius thought of all Elena had said on the full moon, it had felt so real.

"So…?"

"So they must have switched back to normal for that night and turned back since." he concluded and Sirius nodded;

"So I did just have my arse handed to me by Elena?" he asked and Remus nodded;

"Unless something dark disrupted things while they were in their own bodies then only I am able to switch them back." and then Sirius cleared his throat rather compulsively; "What is it now?" Remus prompted in a warning tone and Sirius rubbed the back of his head which was also feeling rather sore after the assault.

"Like a beauty beast curse could disrupt it, maybe?" he mused and Remus nodded wearily;

"Yes, exactly like a beauty beast curse."

"Oh, well then that was Anne." Sirius pointed in the direction of the door and through the net curtains her red bike was conspicuously absent.

"Right now I have to apologise for this as well." Remus groused as he grabbed his muggle coat and made his way toward the door;

"Why? What else did you do to her?" Sirius asked from his place resting gingerly on the marker; "Moony?" but Remus wasn't about to turn back as he moved in hot pursuit of the turbulent young woman. With a vague memory of the last time he had caught Anne crying at the forefront of his mind Remus wisely made for the ladies room in the castle, sure enough he even managed to beat her there as he apparated and she practically crashed the door of the posh restroom down still panting from the furious cycle it had taken to get there before she really broke down. Her body language went from defeated into snapping into a uniform austereness as soon as she saw Remus was there. She was surprised at how deeply affected she was by her upbringing that she was so compulsively composed when the truth was as the anger had dissipated she had been left with nothing but a furious heat between her legs as she thought of a certain pair of heated assessing amber eyes, she tried to convince herself that the wolf was the only reason she was acting so crazy;

"You shouldn't be here Lupin." she hissed as her eyes burned up over his figure watching his neck flush slightly;

"I came to apologise." his voice slightly hoarse as it always was, as if he had not to long ago stead up a whole night screaming, for Anne in that moment, as her first transformation loomed, ignorance was bliss.

"For what?" she asked and then she did lose some decorum, a little more of her showing through the waning wall; "Not for kissing me I hope." her tone as demanding as ever and to this Remus smiled a small smile;

"I couldn't bring myself to be sorry for that." he confessed and she shared in his smile;

"Then what?" she asked and her voice was slightly husky and suddenly the scent of Anne's pheromones found their way into the air surrounding Remus and she squirmed in her blue dress and as she stared at him with convincing cool indifference she was entirely unaware that he knew just how turned on she was. The only reason he was able to spot the feral edge in her posture was because he knew to look for it and because he himself felt oddly familiar with it, sure enough Anne was just noting the same thing in him as his earthy sent cascaded over her. She tilted her head slightly and inhaled hoping he wouldn't notice.

"I shouldn't have sent you away that night." he told her and even though she knew now why he had done it she agreed because that night she had wanted very desperately to stay;

"No-" she agreed and she closes the space between them, running a hand up along the usually composed mans lapels; she watches the heat in his gaze escalate as her own hunger reaches a fever pitch and she grins rather wolfishly if anyone had been taking note; "You really shouldn't have, but better late then never, eh Lupin?" and with a grunt that could have been anything form a word to a growl the scarred mysterious mans mouth descended on hers and she was blissfully a million miles away from existing all over again. He was too excellent, like a hot, very secret slice of pure oblivion. She would never have thought of herself as one to have a fickle heart but there she was, pressed rather explicitly around her one true loves best man falling completely to pieces. So maybe Sirius still had her heart, still stole away her love but then there was Lupin, debonair and so orderly until he kissed you and then he was something else entirely. It was that something that had the potential to be Anne's salvation, that something that she couldn't quite put her finger on but was literally on the tip of her tongue as Remus deepened the kiss making her thoroughly dizzy. For another relieved few moments Remus made her forget all about Sirius Black.

She walked him forward so that his back was pressed to the counter of the vanity, their mouths never separating as Anne's hands dropped down to work on the buckle of Remus's trousers and he smiled into their kiss. His hands slipped down from her waist and gripped her bum allowing him to quickly pick her up and turn them so she sat up on the vanity. Her hips rested back on the counter just far enough to leave a tantalising distance between the increasingly noticeable bulge in Remus's trousers and Anne's shockingly hot core which had never given her so much trouble before in her life. She had never experienced anything like this, at least not in her own body, she pushed the thought aside and for once it slipped away with ease as Remus sucked her bottom lip and bit down possessively making her gasp their kisses becoming light and sporadic as they turn their attention to feeling every inch of one another with burning brushes of desperate fingers. Abandoning her attempts to undo the belts buckle Anne instead wrapped her legs around Remus's waist and pulled him flush against her, allowing him to grind against her sensually, sighing slightly with the relief of the friction as she slipped his jacket off of his shoulders. She began to make quick work of the buttons on his shirt as he took a firm grip of her hips at the edge of the counter. He thrust his hips forward again as he palmed her breast over the expensive materiel of the dress. After a moment he pushed her strap off her shoulder and shifted the panel of materiel covering her breast aside, he immediately rolls her hard nipple between his fingers gently making Anne whimper with her escalating want.

His hand reached back and ran up her leg starting at her delicate ankle, he allowed her dress to shift up with his hand bunching it up along athletically sculpted calves and silky smooth thighs until he travelled dangerously close to her bite and she was forced to stop him, she pulled her mouth off of his as she placed a hand on top of his on her thigh and she sighed;

"Remus." and his head fell to rest on her naked shoulder as he nodded his head against her flushed skin and slipped his hand softly away from her breast;

"Right," he muttered as he shifted the flimsy fabric back to cover her; "I'm sorry." he hissed as he tried to regain his mind in spite of the heady scent of Anne's arousal and his mounting affections toward her. He began to pull his hand away from her but she tightened her grip;

"No it's not that I don't want to Remus I just-"

"Don't," he hissed as he began pulled back and turned away from her as he began to do up his shirt; "I get it, I'm no Sirius Black." he laughed a little bitterly at how pathetic he sounded and Anne slipped off the counter;

"No, you're not." she agreed and wrapped her arms around him to hug him from behind. "Thank God." she mumbled and stretched up a little to kiss him on the back of the neck but he shrugged her off turning to face her, still looking flushed and rather dashing and scholarly and God she was never going to hear the end of this from Elena. Unfortunately he also looked quite angry;

"I wish I could say you were as unlike Elena." and Anne crossed her arms;

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked with her eyes narrowed;

"Well for one you are just as quick to deceive and just as disloyal, at least Elena isn't as much of a tease." and Anne snarled;

"Listen Lupin I already hit you once today, don't make the mistake of thinking I would think twice about doing it again." and he took a step closer his hands out to the side as if asking for her to do her worst;

"What's the matter Chalk? Does the truth hurt?" and she scoffed;

"You listen to me, my sister is twice the person you could ever hope to be and just because I kissed you doesn't mean I owe you anything more, you of all people should no that, at least I didn't slam a door in your face and leave you for dead!" she cried gesturing violently with her hands.

"Oh because leaving you in the hall of my apartment block is such a life threatening situation just because I don't live in a mansion surrounded by mansions I have to live in a dangerous part of town?! Christ you're so spoilt." he snapped back prodding her chest accusingly, she slapped his hand aside. Their voices most likely resonating in the college corridor outside but neither cared.

"Well let me tell you that you aren't the only thing that goes bump it the night on the corner of St. Johns." she spat and his face fell;

"Excuse me?" he whispered and she grinned bitterly;

"Why so grim Remus, does the truth hurt?" she queried mockingly crossing her ankles as she leaned back against the counter behind her, "Let's suffice to say that some pretty weird shit has been going on since you and Sirius showed up, least of all your showing up in the first place, though how two nobodies like you could become so eligible in such a short space of time is beyond me. How did you afford to register with The Castle anyway?" she asked and Remus frowned as an uncanny sense of déjà vu came over him and Anne followed a path that was disturbingly similar to her original conclusion of he and Sirius's true origin, fortunately this time Sirius wasn't their to give the game away.

"You're talking in circles," he hissed and she shook her head;

"No I'm not, I'm talking sense and you know it, if you feel like talking sense anytime soon Remus let me know, I can't talk when you are like this." and she charges toward the door,

"Wait." he murmured, he caught her by her upper arm and winced as she shoved herself free and stopped with her hand on the door;

"What?" she asked as she looked at him over her shoulder looking uncharacteristically elegant in her ankle length shimmering blue dress, he was momentarily struck speechless but recovered before she could tear her eyes away from him with his tie undone and the first few buttons undone to reveal the pale skin of his chest littered with several pale scars. She was a little afraid at the thought of being a wolf herself soon, scarred and pale and weak, but it somehow suited Remus, somehow made him sexier in a tortured artist sort of way. She bit her lip as his deep husky voice eventually diffused through the marble lines room, resonating off the liberal acoustics.

"I'm sorry for being cruel." and she laughed sourly as she shook her head and decided then and there that her heart had had its fun with her and now she was going to deprive it all she could, starting with denying herself the enigmatic Remus Lupin;

"You think I enjoy finding my bearings just in time to have the floor torn out from under me all over again? Well maybe you are right, maybe I am just a spoilt rich kid who likes to think she is misunderstood but forgive me if I am inclined to disagree Mr. Lupin because I think you understand me quite well when I ask you to swear never to speak to me again once Sirius and Elena marry, if you can manage that then you are forgiven." and she left, not waiting for a response but still feeling like jelly from the look in his eye as she had so foolishly looked back, the warm amber looking at her as if she mattered to him, as if he would so hate to lose her. As if someone really did want her, Anne Chalk, for no other reason than because she was what they desired, not because it made someone else suffer, not because they thought she was someone else, but simply because Anne Chalk was exactly their taste. She had no clue at all what he saw in her and she swore to herself that she would never strive to find out as she cycled home.

**A/N:Thanks for reading and please review! merry Christmas!**


	25. Relief

**Relief**

When she cycles up the drive her hip is beyond sore, every movement grates along her injury making her wince with each turn of the pedal. Her temper, libido and heartache all fluctuating irrationally in equal measure as her body was flooded with an array of foreign and harrowing hormones. She tries not to think about the next full moon and the high chance she was going to die. None of these physical reactions were a good sign, particularly being restless and considering her desperate want to climb back aboard her bike and cycle till her body gave out despite her already screaming lungs she would definitely say she was restless. Her skin itched, her temperature was high and she smelt differently. She probably wouldn't have noticed the change in her own scent if it wasn't for her newly heightened sense of smell but she was beginning to exude an increasingly earthy scent as if she was becoming more a part of the forest.

"I wasn't even bitten in a forest." she wasn't surprised to see Sirius's pride and joy gleaming on the other side of the grounds by Elena's pool house. The sleek black bike sent her mind on a whirl wind of fantasies and she groaned with frustration, why couldn't she let go? Why was her heart so stupid, if it was going to begin to obsess over Remus Lupin it would at least have the good grace to forget about Sirius but when had she ever been so lucky?

"I used to unparalleled for luck." she grumbled and as she turned around her face fell even further. Her parents had returned, their Rolls-Royce and accompanying luggage car cluttered the drive forebodingly making her grimace. She had thus far managed to control a great deal of her temper around her parents. As she grew more and more into her own person she had at first been outspoken but had fallen out of the habit when Sirius had described it as a typical thing that was done by silly women. This silence, despite her obstinate behaviour had rather suited her parents, it had done quite a bit for her reputation taking a small amount of the heat off although she people still had ideas about her. She had only recently begun to speak her mind once more, finding her silence increasingly unsustainable and having to be able to be sharp as a tack with her responses when impersonating Elena had of course helped matters along but now her parents had returned and they had always been Anne's most infuriating antagonists since the beginning except now she had little hope of maintaining composure. She was going to tear them apart, probably end up disgraced, her Father would make it impossible for her to get a job in London and if she had no address she would not be able to attend the castle where no address means no dice.

She snarled at Sirius's bike across the grounds, he had been bad news since the moment he had arrived. She was ruined. The wedding was fast approaching, only one day and they would marry and Anne would have to listen to a day where Elena was fawned over and she, the sister, the shrew, would stand by in her slightly torn suspiciously wrinkled chiffon dress and hang her head, for she had no more business with love. She stared down at the bridesmaid dress, it was actually in a good state, the hem would need to be soaked though as it held grit from the bike ride.

She moved indoors to freshen up as she prepared for dinner with her parents. As she entered her own rooms she whipped off her dress and ran the hot tap in the sink to soak it in. Her conflicted mind cluttered as she wandered through her room digging through her press and gritting her teeth against the escalating pain in her hip. She pulled out on of her dresses that she used to wear before she simply couldn't justify behaving the way that was expected of her any longer, not that she had ever been any good at it anyway. Elena wore dresses everyday as she floated through the social complexities of the upper class social elite in London as if it were the simplest thing in the world and as Anne had now experienced the very adult t side of that social structure she had to hand it to her sister, it was a marvellously intellectual feat.

She pulled the grey dress over her head, it was imprinted with small yellow flowers and sat cool against her flush skin barely brushing over the tingling wound on her hip as it fell loose after her waist. She turned to the slim free standing mirror on the opposite side of the room and swayed lightly watching the cotton shift. She had always liked the dress but it hated what it made people think of her but in that moment she realised there was something that upset her more, having the option to wear it taken away from her for fear of the impression it would give suddenly became far more oppressive a thought then the thought of being seen as something she wasn't. Surely she was entitled to wear what she liked for just because other women who allowed themselves to manipulated by so many patriarchal views were inclined toward this type of dress did not mean they represented her. She could be represented only by herself;

"and I like this dress." she mumbled as she spun it again. She laughed quietly to herself in the mirror, maybe her time as Elena hadn't been such a waste, maybe she had gained at least one thing. She pulled on some skin coloured stockings and some of her red lipstick and winced in pain as she bent to lace up her light brown leather brógs.

She moved through the rooms of her home with the high ceilings and plaster stuccowork with quiet measured movements attempting to discover a most desirable way to displace her weight away from her injure hip as she went. Eventually falling into softly limping stride Anne frowned at the stairs before feeling the corners of her mouth turn up and sitting on the edge of the banister and letting out only a light gasp as she let herself slip down as she had been so often scolded for doing as a child. Her dismount must have gone slightly awry however as she landed firmly on her feet before the full force of the drop rebounded and she stumbled forward onto her hands and knees. She cried out immediately as her knees hit the ground hard and pain reverberated around her worn body. Her skirt splayed over torso rather comically had anyone been there to see it, she rolled on to her back and coughed out another groan;

"Annie?" of course, she scowled;

"It's Anne." a heart breaking low whistle and her incredibly hormonal body instantly fired up her reliably intense libido, she turned her head and their he stood in the entrance hall clearly having let himself in. "I see you have been practicing breaking and entering." she grumbled and he frowned and shook his head, walking toward her gracefully;

"It was open, I heard you fall." she lent up slightly but jarring pain passed through her and lent up on one elbow attempting to adjust her skirt which was well and truly ridden up to part her belly button. She could see his grin from the corner of her eye and she practically growled;

"Stop staring at me and I didn't fall I…" his playful grey eyes stared into her blue ones, so like her sisters;

"You fell, nice pins by the way." he grinned as he gripped the edge of her skirt and began to tug it down to cover her but then he paused as his eyes suddenly fixed to her bite, his mouth fell open in shock as he pulled his hand back as if it burned and pulled out of her Sirius induced trance Anne eventually shot up right despite the pain and tugged her skirt to the knee. Grabbing the edge of the softly curved darkly polished oak banister she hauled herself up and Sirius stumbled upright along with her. She looked up at him, nerves building in her stomach;

"Are you ready for tomorrow?" she asked him and he continued to stare at her, he was reeling and Anne frowned as she puzzled it out. Sirius's best friend was a werewolf and his other best friend was also aware of their existence. So her knew.

"Anne you're…" and she turned away from the aghast man and nodded;

"I know." her voice distant she cleared her throat, sounding more firm she said; "keep it to yourself." and began to march toward the dining room but he caught her arm below her small cap sleeves, turning her toward him.

"How long?" he asked and she sighed;

"The last full moon." and Sirius looked increasingly pale;

"Remus?" and she pressed her mouth into a thin line before casting her eyes to heaven and nodding in surrender;

"Ok, not here." she looked up and down the foyer suspiciously and then turned and walked briskly back up the stairs; "come with me." she ordered him and she led him up to her study, they walked in silence and once she had lead him in she locked the door, sighing wearily. When she turned to him he looked nauseous and his words flew from his quickly as if breaking past a damn when she cocked her head to prompt him;

"I should have realised sooner Anne, I'm so sorry this-"

"Is not your fault." she finished and crossed her arms, "Lily explained that it was just a freak coincidence, that that thing had come for Remus and I had just been caught in the cross fire, you know if I hadn't been there to distract him he would have reached Remus as a man and been able to get past the door."

"but Remus-"

"Greyback would have killed him Sirius, I can't help thinking maybe I was meant to be there."

"Greyback was there? but James said…"

"Don't be upset with him and Lily I made them promise and everything worked out ok in the end." his mouth opened and closed a few times,

"Would you stop cutting across every damn thing I say, things are not ok Anne, you are not ok, you're a werewolf at best and odds on you'll be dead by the next full moon and I wonder if James told you that Greyback got away and he doesn't like it when his victims live so if I were you I'd stop standing around in my big house like a sitting duck, like nothing had changed, like I had no brain to think with! Why do you think he came back for Remus?"

"He turned Remus?"

"What? Oh shit no Remus isn't-"

"I know he is Black, it was Greyback?" the pureblood nodded;

"How did you know?" he asked quietly and she fidgeted for a moment before clearing her throat;

"It was the scars. Anyway is there anything else you want discuss with me Black?" she asked carefully struggling frantically to control her temper so as not to prove him right, prove that she had no idea what she was dealing with.

I came here to apologise to you for earlier and because I know-"

"Only for earlier?" she asked but he didn't pause;

"about you and Elena, about you switching places with Elena." he managed to get out and she chocked on her next words before her eyes widened and she blushed deeply. She found a place in the pattern on the rug and didn't let her eyes stray away as Sirius watched her reaction;

"She told you?" Anne remembered how it had been Elena's idea to keep it a secret in the first place;

"No." Sirius muttered making Anne's frown deepen;

"I never wanted to lie to you Sirius." she whispered and he noted how sweet she looked in her light grey dress, they were all so young to be dealing with such things;

"I don't care about you lying." he grumbled and she sunk lower in her chair;

"I bet it bothers you that Elena didn't tell you." and he ran a hand through his hair.

"I thought we were done with secrets." he confessed and her heart ached;

"Why doesn't it bother you that I tricked you?" she asked, still refusing to meet his eyes as she eventually looked up to stare at his perfect pink mouth;

"I don't know." his mouth shaped the words carefully and she huffed as if with amusement and shook her head.

"It's because you don't care what I do, I couldn't upset you if I tried." she flattened the ruffles in her skirt once more; "I'm nothing to you."

"If you are so sure you know the answer then why bother ask?" came his rumbling altercation, their eyes met, suddenly the room felt warmer;

"I wanted to hear you say it." she confessed bitterly and tears threatened to slip down her cheeks; he looked at her with such pity then and suddenly rising with aggression he curled his lip with annoyance at being used as a tool for emotional punishment;

"Are you some sort of masochist Chalk? Is that it?" he asked and her new unpredictable temper rose exponentially,

"Don't try and make me angry just so you don't have to deal with the fact that I am crying over you Black." she hissed and he began to fidget with the corner of the sleeve of his leather coat.

"How do you suggest I deal with it? I can't be responsible for your emotions." he groused and she sprung of her chair;

"For God sake Sirius have some empathy." she pleaded hysterically her emotions going completely haywire as he rose from his chair and raised his hands in a placating gesture. Remus had always said that even when it wasn't near the full it was important he remained calm or the wolf would be further aggravated when it came and women had a terrible track record as wolves, especially muggle women.

"Anne, please I'm sorry, please." and she threw herself forward wrapping her arms around him and sobbing.

"I'm going to die." she cried into the crook of his neck as he pulled her into a hug and remembered how she had embraced him for that solitary moment when he had found out about Elena making such a fool of him. She was still making a fool of him, they both were, but he had to forgive Anne. He had long ago realised that she was the best of them. He shushed her, she continued to shake;

"I do care about you." he mumbled as her tears soaked through the collar of his shirt. "Any man would be lucky to have your heart." and she calmed slightly, her breath becoming more regular as he ran a hand up and down her back trying not to panic at the pile of crying girl that the stoic Anne had so suddenly become. He shook his head; lycanthropy could do wild things to a person.

"Shut up." she murmured and she sighed as she pressed closer to him, he cleared his throat, Sirius Black may not have been good with women when it came to tears but that if their was one thing he understood about women it was sexuality and he knew that sigh. He cleared his throat;

"You are too good for this Anne, for me…" he began to move away but she held him fast shocked at her own inability to control her reaction to him. She quietly inhaled his scent and hummed dizzily over the hot smell of his cologne on his warm skin. Leather and axel grease, she pressed more intimately against him, appreciating the strength and sheer masculinity of his form.;

"I am so tired of being good." she whispered to the marauder before her hand ran into his hair and she pressed her mouth hard against his instinctively. His lips soft against hers, his scent surrounding her, he gasped at her forwardness and almost automatically his body responded to her, pressing his tongue into her mouth and running his hands over her lean tan figure. Freed in the knowledge that she was being received as herself by Sirius with no misconceptions Anne released every hidden passionate whim she had secreted away since meeting the infuriating man, kissing him angrily with bruising force and causing him to grunt over her mouth in guttural response to her intensity. She fogged his mind, driving him crazy as he suddenly panicked at truly tasting the forbidden fruit, the unrelenting woman who had often been openly cruel to him and clearly resented her emotional attachment to him was making him question everything he had thought he had known about his love for her sister as her hand deftly undid his fly and slipped into his trousers to grip his bare cock, her skin cool against his hot erection.

"fuck." he hissed. Anne was smiling, he could see, her red lipstick smudged notoriously as her teeth flashed rather wolfishly. He cleared his throat, trying to think of something to say but suddenly she snickered as she applied a light amount of force and made him pull her tighter to him by her waist, his head rested to her shoulder and then she shook her head pulling her hand away;

"Of course Sirius Black had no need for underwear." she muttered as she sighed deeply and this sigh was one Sirius wasn't so used to hearing as his nose tingled with her shockingly maddening scent. How had he not seen it before? How had he not seen Anne as the empowered leggy woman she was without her literally jumping him and sticking her hand down his pants? This was supposed to be his strong suit.

"Uuuh…" he broke out nervously over her shoulder and she cleared her throat;

"Sirius I think Elena was right." and he stiffened at his Fiancé's name as it ran over him like a bucket of cold water; his grip on her waist slackened as his senses began to come back to him now that some of Anne's sexual animosity had dissipated, not that he would ever be able to see her the same way again;

"You and I are a bad match." and he opened his mouth not really knowing what he was going to say but she stepped out of his arms and moved across the study to unlock the door before turning to the aristocratic man flushed with his fly down and gesturing for him to leave. God help her if he wasn't the most gorgeous thing she had ever seen but for some reason as he had held her and kissed her and even as she felt how hard he was for her he just didn't really do it for her like she had always thought he would;

"I think we could probably write up whatever happened here as a bout of cold feet, don't you?" and he gaped at her, again;

"I don't know." he responded honestly and she ran a hand through her hair as she stared at the frustrated Adonis of a man and sighed that sigh again;

"I was so sure I wanted you." she whispered almost to herself and he realised then it was a sigh of relief.

"You're out of your mind." he rasped and a bright smile spread across her face, a smile that she was terribly unused to that she had missed desperately.

"I was." and then it fell as he licked his bottom lip and buttoned the top of his fly looking completely baffled; "I'm sorry Sirius, it's my lycanthropy." she shrugged and he narrowed his eyes;

"Oh no, you can't just dismiss this as a werewolf thing you have been after it since we met." and for once his crudeness ran off of her like water off a ducks back and she shrugged;

" if I may be frank?" she asked, one eyebrow raised and his eyes floated over her delectable athletic body that he had once thought so stiff brush sensually against her wrinkled dress. He gestured for her to go on and she closed the door over a small amount.

" It appears something about our physical transgression has caused me to see through an illusion cast by my heart, that perhaps everything I have felt in response to you has nothing to do with you at all. Sirius I am beginning to now entertain the possibility that it was never you that I was jealous of but merely what you had with my sister." and her bright smile returned as she fell back loosely against the wall; "So I wonder from what my heart had been hiding as it consumed itself with you and I think I know." Sirius's inner diva was not taking this well as the plain charged woman lent against the door frame looking more free and easy then he had ever seen her as if her very attraction to him had been the thing that had repelled him, in that moment her beauty rivalled Elena's. His stomach twisted, at least how Elena used to look before the curse. Anyway to put things simply Anne, the always pining, painfully intelligent love struck Anne seemed to be taking no half measures in bruising his ego as she casually dismissed what had seemed such honest devotion.

"So you feel nothing for me?" he asked and she faced him;

"Sirius I have cared for you deeply," she spoke slowly, trying to choose the most honest words; "but I think my rationality in life had finally managed to level out my naivety in heart."

"So that didn't do it for you?" he asked a little incredulous at having one of the most powerful sexual encounters of his life so casually dismissed by the second party. Anne blushed a little and closed the door the rest of the way;

"Honestly?" she asked and she turned to meet his perfectly shaped grey eyes once more; "No." and she laughed before becoming more sombre and Sirius could more clearly see her limp from her injury now that he knew it was there as she approached him; "I have caused everyone so much pain with my confusion Sirius and I'm sorry for inflicting my affections on you when it clearly made you uncomfortable but I think I was just tired of feeling lonely and you seem like such an escape from everything I have ever been." she crossed her arms defensively as she said this; "but I can't ever be the same as I was now anyway, independent of loving you or not, I am not even the same creature I was." his breathing began to calm as he watched reality settle back over Anne, even without her unrequited love for him to torment her, Anne still had a lot on her plate. She was still slowly becoming a dark creature, she was still the shrew of her family and still reprehensibly lonely, still pitiable. "You think Greyback will come back for me?" she asked and looking into her earnest face his stomach twisted, how had he not seen it before?

"Merlin I hope not." and his grim expression seemed to carry some added weight that Anne couldn't quite place before he pulled up his fly and sped towards the door, stopping for a moment as he paused in the doorway, holding the handle;

"Wait Black;" she spoke and suddenly he felt relief as he turned back; a cocky grin fixed on his handsome face; "If there is something you have to say to me you had better say it now because I…"

"You?" he pressed;

"I might not be around for much longer to hear it." and he frowned thinking of all the strange oddly organic feelings Anne had spawned in him in the previous few moments, even if he wasn't sure about much he was sure they were powerful and as he gave the werewolf another once over, definitely sexual;

"No," he pulled the door open and stepped out onto the Verona marble floored landing; "I- nothing, it's nothing." and as her rarely inarticulate brother-to-be slammed the door behind him and trotted down the hall put her hand to her perpetually feverish forehead and took several deep breaths closing her eyes.

"I guess I am fickle." she muttered before gasping and running painfully after Sirius who was just at the large French door leading back out onto the grounds;

"Sirius!" she called and he turned, eyes wide;

"Yes?" he asked, cursing himself as it came out a little too hopefully;

"You can't tell anyone." he looked conflicted; "I don't care what super open trust policy you have with Elena or any of the others." she called from the banister of the gallery at the top of the stairs;

"I want you to tell them then Anne." she bit her lip as the light caught him in a way that still took her breath away even as she admitted to herself that he had lost much of his sexual allure. It wasn't as though he was a bad kisser it was just that it wasn't all she had thought… it was nothing like it had been with Remus. The though of Remus suddenly made her uneasy and she pushed the thought away. Not again.

"I'll tell Elena after the honeymoon but don't tell her I'm in danger Sirius, she doesn't need any more stress with…" she looked up and down the corridor; "the wedding and everything." Sirius nodded;

"Ok, what about Remus? When will you tell him?" Sirius asked inflexibly but she shrugged frivolously;

"I don't see what this has to do with Lupin." she retorted petulantly to which the impatient Black sneered;

"Whatever you say Chalk but don't say I didn't warn you, discussing this with Moony could be the difference between life and death for someone like you." and he was gone in a single elegant stride.

As his engine outside roared to life her wiry Mother clacked into the hall in her ruby red dress and forest green eye shadow dabbed clumsily around her blue eyes which were increasingly watery as of late, as a woman she was famed for her delicacy, much like Elena she was petite and blonde although Anne was sure she died it considering its brittle state. Her mother would never admit to it however. She surveyed the room, peaking out the window next to the door even though the door was glass to watch Sirius making his way down the drive.

"Welcome home." Anne called down to her and her mother jumped before she turned with a broad smile that fell slightly when she saw the lesser of her two daughter;

"Come down here and greet me properly Annie, please." Anne scowled, not bothering to correct her, if she wanted a daughter called Annie she should have called her Annie. She began to move steadily, trying to cloak her injury, the stiffness she had begun to escape slipping back into her limbs as her parents return twisted her stomach. Fortunately her Mother had already moved to the phone to call Elena up to dinner at the house.

"Oh hello sweet heart!… yes we are at the house now, I hope you haven't been spending too much time in that dreadful pool house?… yes well I'd hoped you'd changed your mind, you must be lonely down there… Yes I suppose that would make a difference, so dinner?…" and then her Mothers voice began to sound slightly dulled of enthusiasm; "Yes they sent those over today, Anne picked hers up herself… I could come down to you after we have eaten then? No?…" Rolling her eyes Anne fixed her dress and stormed past her Mother into the dining room preparing to eat as much food as quickly as possible before running down to see Elena. She needed to see her sister.

**A/N: sorry for long gap between posts, I'll try and not let it happen again! Hope you all had a cool Yule and a frantic first!**

**thanks for reading.**


	26. Magic

**Magic**

If she was honest the time since Elena had returned to her body had been rather blissful, aside from the searing pain along her skin, the laceration on her cheek which she was sure had grown since she had first seen it and the awkward nausea brought on by the beginning of her second trimester in pregnancy. Sirius seemed to have truly forgiven her, he couldn't stay mad at her which she thought was fair enough for she had much the same problem. Not to mention for the first time in years she felt genuine remorse which, though it gave her a stomach ache, made her feel more whole, like she was truly connected with her own actions for the first time in a long time. She was suddenly evolving into a rather terrible liar reminding herself of a much younger Elena Chalk, for so long lying had come to her so naturally but after struggling through a daily impression of Anne it was hard to be anything but completely unadulterated Elena Chalk once she had returned to her body.

As the leading members of the wedding party were in their final fittings she had to admit it was a relief, they were cutting preparation close with the wedding but things seemed to be falling into place in time. Her wedding dress had arrived and she had planned to simply wear her veil for the first part of the day and then turn the other cheek for the kiss during the ceremony. The party afterward was far more of a concern however. She frowned at the mirror trying to think of a solution, it was too late to introduce a masquerade theme, she thought as she turned from side to side in her wedding dress, surveying it from different angles. She slipped out of it carefully a moment later thinking perhaps she could just skip the damn party. The idea of returning to see all of her friends suddenly felt oddly oppressive after her time away.

She mussed up her hair a small amount and turned her undamaged cheek to the mirror as she stood in her specifically tailored wedding lingerie. Aside from the light curve of her belly she still looked the same as she always had. It was strange that someone could change so much but still look the very same. She jumped slightly as she heard the engine of Sirius's bike roar outside until she suddenly felt butterflies rise in her stomach and when she turned to face the mirror once more she saw herself looking more elated and lightly flushed. She sort of glowed, even her bandage glowed;

"I do look different." It was Sirius, thanks to him and Anne she had grown up more in the last few weeks then she had her entire adolescence. Maybe not grown up but certainly changed, she had never thought that she would be the blushing bride in anything more then show but there she was, embodying the old cliché totally as she heard the front door open and she called out to Sirius in the lounge from her room.

"Hold on Sirius I'm not decent." which obviously wasn't going to stop him as the his heavy foot steps barely delayed his entrance to her room. When he thundered in he seemed to be driven by some furious momentum as if he had stormed the whole way to her home from the tailors but then he saw her. Her Blonde hair loose around her shoulders as she stood in her snow white bustier and satin knickers clipped to silk stockings with suspenders. Her blue eyes luminous and shy framed by thick lashes and arching eyebrows, her full lips slightly pouted in response to his intrusion. He shook his head and tried to remember why he was angry but his treacherous eyes travelled treacherously over the light flush on her unbandaged cheek to her lush body which he knew so well and never failed to drive him crazy. Her breasts were high and round and he knew that her dusky aroused nipples would match the shade of her blush perfectly as they pressed against the silky materiel of her corset, the softness of which could only be rivalled by his fiancés satin skin. Each new thing he had learned about Elena's body had only driven him further toward adoration at how perfect it was, little sighing details he had collected since first meeting her and this moment seemed to unite his every impossible fantasy. The graceful curve of her waist and the full sexy flare of her hip;

"Sirius?" he admired her sweet voice as her fine beautifully shaped legs shifted lightly;

"Yeah?" he rasped and her dainty arms folded over her breasts only distracting him further as it caused them to press together provocatively and reveal the tops of her velvety pink areole before she abruptly turned her back on him in a swish of light golden hair;

"In case you haven't noticed this is supposed to be for the wedding night." she scolded but she had lost him; it would have to be a thong wouldn't it; he groaned as he put his hand over his eyes and turned away;

"Damn Elena I'm supposed to be mad at you." he grumbled and Elena picked up her dress and hid it in the wardrobe before pulling on a dressing gown sitting on the edge of the vanity;

"What about?" she asked leaning forward intently toward Sirius's back; "Sirius look at me." and he dropped his hand from his eyes turning cautiously, Elena sat perched on the vanity looking just as delectable not that it mattered, even if she was placed on the other side of the globe it was too late for him, he was completely wound up.

"You lied." he eventually hissed and her doe eyes darkened with guilt;

"and I apologised." she responded meekly, Sirius know how to feel, could he had never lost his place in the middle of a tantrum, he tried to back track as his temper started to dissipate frustratingly;

"No, you lied _again_ and I ended up tearing the head off Anne because of it." Elena stiffened;

"What did you say to her?" she asked crisply her sternness making it easier for him to have a go at her but her domineering manner doing nothing to diffuse his arousal which was verging on painful. He was a grown man for God sakes and not just any man he was Sirius Black, this was just ridiculous.

"I wouldn't have said a thing to her if you had both just been honest with me." and Elena blanched, he couldn't know, how?

"What did she tell you?" Elena asked urgently as Sirius slipped off his leather coat and through it over the end of her bed, looking carelessly handsome in his black t-shirt and wrinkled jeans stained with oil from his bike. Her eyes fixed on the rather obvious bulge in his trousers before flashing up to meet his eyes as he spoke;

"Nothing she didn't need to, did you think I wouldn't work it out? Besides do you think that sort of thing just happens on its own? If Remus hadn't cast that dual memory charm you wouldn't have switched places in the first place!" Elena's head suddenly hurt;

"_What?_" she sort of gasped out, shocked and Sirius rolled his eyes;

"Dear Merlin." he hissed and Elena remembered hearing it before Sirius reached his hand into the oddly deep front pocket of his jeans and pulled out a length of wood with an elegant flourish slamming on the vanity next to Elena. "Magic Elena, it doesn't just happen for no reason." and the blonde woman laughed weakly, it would have been laughable if it hadn't been for the month she'd had but in that moment the part of her that desperately craved an explanation as to what had happened cringed, the part that quite desperately wanted to know if it would happen again.

"Merlin?" she asked and somewhere in her head a bell rang ever so quietly; "Remus said the same thing." and she reflected that perhaps the whole magic thing had been a long running joke. "I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking…" it was such a simple denial, such an easy lie but she just couldn't. her words stuck and she breathed out a rush of air before looking into Sirius's grey eyes. "oh Sirius." she lamented and shook her head as she lifted her shoulders in a shrug. He rebounded off the edge of the vanity's smooth counter and paced angrily to the other side of the room;

"I don't fucking believe this." he groused and Elena bristled as she picked up the wooden rod he had left behind him and stared at it for a moment before rising from her seat.

"What is this?" she asked her mind rather tragically used to turning arguments like these in her favour.

"What does it look like Elena? it's a fucking magic wand isn't it?" and she held it out to him with the lightly engraved hilt first.

"Prove it." and he pulled it from her causing her cloak to vanish almost as soon as he grabbed it.

"Sirius!" she cried and he cast a glance around distractedly;

"I don't- Elena Jesus it was the first thing I thought off- of I just…" She snickered uselessly for a moment and he followed suit before she shook her head and the tension was restored as she crossed her arms over her chest, this time in a gesture delicate enough to make it more vulnerable than sexual. He sobered with her and then took a breath before grunting and remembering to be angry, to glare. "The point is you've lied to me, you lied to me for weeks! You and your damn sister. You made me look like an idiot…** again**!" and his anger was tangible and for a moment Elena was speechless and the slight shift of her weight from foot to foot drew his attention back to her legs. When he eventually pulled his eyes back over the God forsaken bodice and met her soft blue doe eyes he saw they had taken on a slightly steely quality and he raised an eyebrow, what did she have to be upset about?

"Dual memory charm, explain." she demanded and he shook his head in an attempt to clear it for long enough to actually have the conversation for a moment longer before turning to the calculating blonde;

"It was Remus, Anne found us out so he did this thing with the…" he gestured around vaguely between two points; "I don't know you'll have to ask him, anyway, he erased it from her memory, that we're wizards but whatever way he did it mixed you two up and you-" he grumbled with distain

"I?" she challenged tears welling up in her eyes as she thought of all the pain and frustration and out right fear she had felt over the last few weeks. How she had pretended that she was so sure it would all work out, as if everything was so certain and…

"You didn't fucking tell me!" he cried accusingly, his eyes unfocussed with scorn;

"all this time." she whispered at the same time, the sound of her muted outcry of betrayal lost in his ridiculous childish tantrum.

"What did you say?" he asked, frustrated at his inability to focus as Elena pinched the bridge of her nose and he took a moment to savour looking her up and down before he closed his eyes and summoned her robe back, holding out to her;

"I can't talk to you when you're all sexy put it back on." and she took it from him, her hands feeling oddly numb as she slipped it back on.

"You made it disappear." she mumbled as her expression hardened; "Sirius do you honestly not see how this argument is based on one huge double standard?" she asked and Sirius snorted unattractively;

"You mean the way you say you won't lie to me ever again and say you love me and then you switch places with your sister and don't even tell me?!" and Elena scoffed;

"No Sirius, I mean the way you have been keeping secrets from me from the moment we met!" she cried her voice beginning to rise as it rarely did as she worked to articulate her point feeling the cuts along the side of her face begin to throb; "Do you have any idea how terrified I've been? Being torn right out of my body and shoved into Anne's? Do you think I _liked_ having to pretend to be Anne? We had no idea what was going on, I thought I had gone insane because of you and your selfishness and your cowardice, I can't believe I am even having this argument, are you genuinely telling me that you have magical powers and that is the reason Anne and I were forced to change places right after the night I thought you had left me for good to raise a child on my own?" Sirius felt scattered once more, God she was so frustrating;

"That's different Elena, God this is not how I meant to tell you..." he suddenly felt his cheeks flush, Christ, what age was he? This was not the way to tell your new muggle wife that she was carrying a magical baby but his temper simply wouldn't let up, his pride so deeply wounded; "I wasn't allowed, it's against our laws-"

"What? There's more of you? What are you part of some sort of underground Wizard cult? You say Remus is one of you? Is that why he has all those scars? Some sort of ritual?" she cried and Sirius growled;

"We're no a cult for fuck sake Elena it's like a whole other world, we use magic to keep it a secret, we have for years. When wizards and muggles mix too much it can be dangerous."

"Muggles?" Elena asked wrinkling her nose;

"Non-magical folk...' Sirius shrugged and Elena's jaw dropped as she scoffed;

"Oh yeah, mixing with Wizards is definitely dangerous you've got that right." she marched back over to the dressing table and sat cantankerously on her red velvet cushioned bench and Sirius reeled for a moment at the odd reverse in usual prejudices;

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, finding it incredibly surreal to be the person responsible for introducing this woman to the magical world with such viciousness but of course she had to know some time;

"Well how about I'm only twenty two fucking years old and I've known a wizard for less than a year and I have already switched bodies with my sister, I had information forced from with what I now assume was magic, not to mention I'm knocked up and so terrified of being alone to raise this child I am trapping the only man I could ever imagine actually wanting to spend the rest of my life with in a marriage he completely resents. Fuck you and your wizard friends Sirius Black, you've brought me nothing but pain. I keep telling myself this is what I want, that this baby is meant to be mine but it's just not true. I mean Jesus Christ I love you Sirius more than I love my own life but I just can't bring myself to be happy with you. I can't take it, I can't take the rest of my life swamped in this guilt, I'd rather live with the shame of being scorned by everyone else then live my whole life with the guilt of being loved by you." she pulled her ring from her finger and held it out to him "Take it!" she cried and he reached forward for it gently closing her hand back around the promise;

"Don't you dare give up on us Elena, we've come too far." and then he was kissing her through her tears and it was a relief because he had wanted to do it ever since she had walked into the room;

"I betrayed you." she whispered against his lips, pulling away, shaking her head;

"Elena I have broken every heart I've ever held," and he placed his hand over her thumping heart; "let me heal this one." she hiccuped as he kissed her mascara black tear; "I betrayed you." He rumbled and she shook her head; " I should have told you that night, on the full moon." but she just shrugged before she stiffened in his arms and pulled his hands from her waist as she looked up at him;

"It wasn't just a thug or something that attacked us on the full moon was it?" and she brushed a hand over her bandage which had stopped throbbing as he kissed her; "My face? Did something magical happen to my face?" and Sirius cleared his throat;

"That's a fairly broad conclusion to draw..." he answered arbitrarily;

"I could feel it changing." and Sirius grimaced;

"Oh." He muttered and she gaped at him once more. "This is really not how I meant to tell you..." and they stared at each other, Elena took a calming breath;

"How did you mean to tell me?" she asked carefully and the Wizard whistled lowly and in huge contrast to when he arrived he was actually kind of glad Elena had switched with Anne, at least she already believed in magic, it still took two hours for him to satisfy her questions.

**A/N: ok gah- finally posted something, thanks for reading!**


	27. Scotch

Charles Chalk sat at the head of the table as Anne entered the dining room, his complexion ruddy from whiskey and wine, a tracery of fine purpled capillaries littered over his nose and round cheeks, his died Black hair slicked back in ridiculous contrast to his bushy grey moustache. He poured over a plate of quail, his cutlery scraping along the fine China gratingly, something it only seemed to do when they ate alone. Anne suspected it was an act of passive aggression in the silent petty war he held against her mother. When she was younger her Father used to be exceptionally hard on her as he doted on Elena, for years Anne had crumbled, searching desperately within herself to find a reason why, it wasn't until she had built up a rather thick skin that she was able to figure it out. She had become a pawn in her parents game, as few would believe Anne used to quite obviously be the more sensitive of the two sister and her Father would prey on her for no other reason than to aggravate her Mother. When Anne was a young girl her Mother had been fiercely protective of her delicate manner, fawning over her gentleness saying she would make a fine lady and how her Mother had hated to see her in tears, this fact was not lost on Charles and he took full advantage. Little did he know that at her core Anne was not one to crumble, it didn't matter however that Charles had built her a strong willed character rather than breaking her soft spirit, either way he had succeeded in alienating the girl from her Mother. Her Fathers eyes flashed to look at her for less than a countable second, he said nothing, Anne pressed her mouth into a tight line and sat down. A plate of quail was promptly placed in front of her, it was her least favourite meal.

"Mr. Page?" she asked, feeling the void creeping along the back of her neck, causing her hair to raise. She was very likely going to die the next full moon, she thought, and if she had such a short time to live, if the odds were so high she would not survive then she wasn't going to spend her final days eating quail in silence next to her Father who was practically a stranger. Every single thing she had to lose be damned, she stopped giving a fuck about everything she had worked for as she suddenly felt the shadow of her own mortality.

"May I help you Ms. Chalk?" he asked and she turned and smiled at the middle aged head of their small largely unnecessary staff. She held up the plate to him,

"Do you know if we have any steak?" she asked and her Father shuffled in his seat, not wanting to be torn form his paper unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

"Yes Ms., we have some fresh fillets for your Father and his guests later in the week." Anne nodded;

"I'll have one please, rare." and the man look conflicted as he took her plate;

"No." said her Father simply and Page cast around helplessly for a moment before nodding;

"I believe we have one spare Sir." and Anne lent back in her chair slightly;

"Thank you Mr. Page." and the man cleared the room speedily through the service door just as her Mother entered looking upset;

"Sirius's parents can't make it to the wedding!" she frowned and Anne snorted making her Father lower his paper slightly to glare at her;

"Change the date, the whole thing is a shambles anyway." her Father rumbled gruffly as he sheered his knife over his plate and the burgeoning werewolf's uncontrolled emotional volatility spiked as her newly highly sensitised hearing caused her to flinch and exclaim in protest before she pulled her Fathers knife from his hand and flipped it, stabbing it through the expensive tables fine finish and splintering the wood she lent up over her Fathers plate of quail and lifted a finger to her lips;

"Sshhhh." she whispered and lowered back into her chair loosing the knife that remained lodged in the table as her Mother stood across from her, her hand on the back of the chair at her Fathers right preparing to sit down and stared at the vulgar young woman her sweet girl had become.

"Are you going to sit down?" Anne asked and her Mother quickly pulled back the chair and took her seat crossing her ankles and lacing her fingers together. Page returned after a few more desperate moments of silence during which both of Anne's parents stared transfixed at the dinner knife their daughter had used to successfully penetrate a solid wood table as if it had been butter; Anne crossed her legs and fiddled with the hem of her dress as the plate of steak was placed in front of her;

"Would you like anything else?" the man asked, eyeing the knife for just a moment and then looking away quickly as if he had been caught staring at Charles Chalks distracting mole.

"Liquor." she smiled; "Anything with a lot of alcohol, please." and she cut into her steak as he rushed out to the cabinet and returned with a tumbler and a bottle of mid-range scotch, Charles eyes darted to it in misery but he said nothing;

"Thanks a million Mr. Page;" she told him and poured a generous amount of the expensive drink into an empty glass left on the table for water which she then held out to him; "There have that on me." and he looked as if he was about to refuse; "I insist." she insisted and her Mother spoke up tremulously;

"Take it." and the man cleared his throat and left once more, scotch in hand as Anne poured some into the tumbler and lashed it back with a spluttering cough, immediately cutting into her steak which was thoroughly pink through the middle.

"So," she spoke through a full mouth as she poured more dry scotch into her crystal glass clumsily; "how was Greece?" she asked and her Father stared down at his food;

"Hot, I spent a lot of time in doors." said her mother and Anne nodded sympathetically as a young woman entered the room and placed a plate of quail in front of her Mother, the corner of Anne's mouth twitched with amusement as her Father looked in a battle to refuse a new knife with which he was presented, the red haired girl bustled from the room.

"Yes that doesn't surprise me, God forbid you should tan Mother people might mistake you for a participating human being who engages with life. It looks like you weren't to concerned with the sun Father, you're looking rather pink." and her Father began to cut through his bird quietly;

"Yes, I had to be out in it often, Ted Winslow kept on organising lunches on the board walk." he grumbled and Anne shook her head disapprovingly as she downed another scotch;

"Really?" asked Anne sounding aghast; "That Winslow, the nerve!" and then she stood abruptly causing both of her parents to flinch; "I'm moving out." and she grabbed the bottle of scotch before heading for the door, she paused for a moment, trying to think of something to say, waiting to see if her parents would call her back. Waiting for a threat to ruin her so that she would be out of the castle or out of the country, waiting for the bars to fall down on her prison of a life but they were silent; she had scared them and she had nothing to say to them. So she left and she just laughed on her way out, she would return for her things. Pulling on a coat opening the front door Anne was suddenly interrupted by the red headed servant;

"Where will you go Ms. Chalk?" the girl asked and Anne smiled at her;

"Well I was going to go cycle to a loud pub and get more drunk." Anne shrugged and the girl looked concerned;

"Your scholarship!" she girl cried;

"Bridget, yeah?" and the girl nodded; "Thanks for being the only person who gives a fuck about my education Bridget." and she opened the door again before the girl pressed something into her hand;

"You got the highest acceptance score into the college for four decades Ms. Chalk." Anne sighed as she turned back to Bridget who must have been just over eighteen;

"My Father can tell you all about how that was a fluke-"

"But it wasn't." Anne lifted up the piece of paper and saw an address scrawled onto it, she turned to the maid, a confused look on her face; "Ms. Chalk, would you be willing to tutor me for next years exams? You can stay with me in my flat for as long as you want, there is a spare room, it's all boxes at the moment but-"

"No." Anne said, shaking her head; "I can't, I would but I can't, I have a lot of stuff going on at the moment, I'd make a lousy flat mate, believe me. Not to mention your job, if my parents found out…" she let it hang but Bridget rolled her eyes and closed Anne's hand around the piece of paper;

"Keep it, consider it, take your time. In case you haven't guessed I don't want to spend the rest of my life here anyway." and Anne took another step out of the door, shoving the paper in her pocket, shocked to find a woman with ambition was so close all along;

"No," Anne muttered; "I don't suppose anyone would." and the girls brown eyes softened as she smiled softly;

"I'll see you round Ms. Chalk." and she shut the door, Anne stared after her for a minute before wincing around another mouthful of warm Scotch.

"Here's hoping." she muttered and she cast a glance down to her sisters pool house, maybe she didn't need to see Elena, maybe things were just starting to make sense. She hopped on top of her bike and wheeled smoothly down the drive wondering how she had ever managed to steer herself into a fall as she pulled out onto the quiet street. She marvelled at her apparent ability to heal as the pain in her leg subdued though she was sure the alcohol probably had something to do with it as she pedalled along singing Blue Suede Shoes at the top of her voice and terribly out of tune. She necked back her scotch and felt like she could do just that forever as she moved through the streets until she eventually failed to judge a distance and crashed head long into the side of a boxy car pulling out of a garage. She ended up gracefully tumbling over the front of the lightly chipped bonnet and spilling a substantial amount of liquor over herself and the wind shield.

Anne turned and waved to the familiar man running the vehicle whose shocked expression eventually fell as she broke out into a wave of giggles,

"You dickhead" she cried from the front of the mans car and he shook his head;

"You're fluted." he spoke loud enough for her to hear and she rolled off the front of his car as he climbed out, stepping over her bike. She lifted up her nearly empty bottle of scotch and squinted at it forlornly;

"Do you want to do me a favour?" she asked and the inescapable Remus Lupin nodded looking at her with a look half way between amusement and concern, his scars illuminated in the strange mix of blue dusk and orange street lights;

"Are you seriously drunk enough not to feel the pain of slamming onto the hood of my car?" and he pulled his keys out of the ignition before locking the car up. "I'll assume the favour is to take you to get your stomach pumped?" and she snorted;

"I didn't know you had a shitty car to 'slam' into." she observed swaying slightly as she air quoted clumsily, scotch in hand, around the word "slam" as if Remus was exaggerating;

"What?" the sandy haired werewolf asked putting his hands out to steady her but afraid to touch her;

"That piece of shit covered in expensive scotch that tasted like pee? I didn't know you drove." and Remus unlocked the car again, he was going to have to take her back to her house, he held open the door to the back seat;

"Get in please." he ordered and Anne wrinkled up her nose in distaste before shrugging and rolling her eyes;

"Ok." she agreed petulantly; "But you shouldn't be so bossy." she ordered before smiling at him and clambering in before he closed the door behind her and slipped into the front seat. He started up the muggle car he had been ordered to deliver to James so it could be transfigured for the wedding the following day and pulled of the handle break. Remus expected his fellow marauders would be fairly busy with the stag do being in full swing by now and doubted they would notice if he was a little late as he drove Anne home.

"What about my bike?" Anne asked her face squished up against the glass as she stared down at it, her hand still wrapped like a vice around such a large bottle of scotch that no person should have been able to cycle after having consumed it. Sighing wearily Remus climbed out of the car to retrieve the bike, shoving the clumsily painted yellow bike into the boot;

"Lupin?" she called from the passenger seat where she had apparently climbed, as he walked around the side of the car.

"Yes?" he responded mildly as he sat back into the car and let his eyes run over her body surreptitiously in an effort to spot any injuries;

"What sort of person do you think I am?" she asked and his eyes shot up to meet her surprisingly engaged gaze before she turned away to focus on her scotch and she took a hearty swig, grimacing slightly;

"I-"

"I kissed Sirius." and Remus coughed, chocking on his answer;

"Well…" the werewolf floundered,

"Aren't you driving us somewhere?" she asked as she fidgeted with the label of the bottle and his attention returned to the purr of the engine as he turned the blue car toward the Chalks home;

"The wedding is tomorrow." he supplied uselessly half to prompt to her to continue and in part simply to bring it up, to assure himself that Sirius Black was almost finished breaking hearts.

"Yes, he told me about some things I didn't expect him to know." she mumbled, Remus cleared his throat, she blew over the top of the bottle making it whistle lightly. "You, James, Lily, Sirius, you aren't like Elena and I, are you?"

"Well we went to the same school." he tried and Anne laughed shaking her head disbelievingly as Remus stopped at a set of traffic lights;

"Oh fuck off," she hissed cracking the window and sticking her head outside to squint at a street sign; "Don't you think it's time we all started being honest with each other? I kissed Sirius, now you go." and Remus frowned as he wondered what sort of loose terminology 'kissing' was in Anne's book;

"A few hours ago you told me you never wanted to speak to me again." Remus pointed out and then frowned at himself for being so blunt but Anne just blew a raspberry.

"A few hours ago Remus… I tell you what I made this decision, right? I said to myself, I said, self: no more silly romance and we were being so silly, you know?" she coughed around some more scotch as Remus lifted his shoulders and shook his head in confusion before turning to her;

"It wasn't- we…" he tried to think of a reason to defend what they had done, after all they were two consenting single adults who were obviously attracted to each other, but then it wasn't like that at all, he was werewolf, he was being ridiculous. He shifted into gear as the lights changed and he cleared his throat as Anne stared at him expectantly, she wagged a finger at him, nodding;

"See? We're smart Remus, look at Sirius and Elena, their fucked. Not us, we're boss." She finished the last swig of her scotch and promptly threw it out the window to smash against the road, making Remus flinch. She eyed up another road sign, "Where are we going?" the wiry woman asked as she sank further into her chair.

"To your house, you need to sober up." and as they stopped at the next junction and watched a trail of teenagers amble across the road with a football Anne leant forward against the dash and looked at Remus through a few tendrils of unruly mousy brown hair;

"You've gone all sorts of shy Lupin." she muttered and he tapped his fingers over the wheel;

"I don't know what you mean." and her soft blue eyes eventually attracted his gaze making her smile loftily and there really wasn't much to be said for Anne's face but let any man who claimed that she didn't have a contagious smile be damned;

"There's that look." she whispered sweetly and her eyes flicked ahead for a moment; "Green light."

"What?" Remus mumbled until a Jag behind them beeped startling him and in his haste to push forward he misapplied the clutch causing the engine to stall and cut out. Anne giggled before she saw the miserable look on Lupin's rather adorable face;

"The battery in this car is bollixed." Remus complained and Anne's mouth formed an o of understanding;

"You need a jump?" the haggard werewolf nodded;

"Right well, we're in Terraceford."

"and?"

"and none of the so-called well-to-do types around here are going to offer." The man driving behind them had clearly lost his patience and hadn't taken his hand of the horn for a good ten seconds making both the sensitive werewolves flinch. "I'll steer, you push." Anne ordered as she pressed the button on Remus's seatbelt, he groaned as he stepped out. That was the thing about muggle cars, if you wanted to modify them magically you had to really know what you were doing and Remus hadn't the slightest clue. As Anne settled into the drivers seat and Remus pushed behind marvelling at the shocking level of sobriety the woman was capable of maintaining after enough alcohol to leave Sirius asleep against the tree he was pissing on.

As Anne began to steer them into an alcove the sound of a motorbike crept up behind him and for a moment his mind flew to Anne before he turned around and saw a police officer climbing off of a moped in a cheap high vis with a very official looking hat with its badge pinned on that muggle law enforcers always wore;

"You alright there lad?" the man asked and Remus just nodded as he continued to push with a groan;

"The ladies steering." Remus explained hoping the strain in his voice could be passed of as having been caused by physical exertion rather than slightly blind panic. Of course he was a marauder but damn, Remus was a prefect and didn't want to have to deal with explaining why he had put a very drunk girl with no license at the wheel of an uninsured car.

The officer smiled understandingly showing slightly crooked teeth, he began to walk toward the front of the vehicle and Remus stiffened as the man in his leather shoes leant toward the window and tapped it with his gloved hand before producing a torch;

"Are you alright there Miss.?" he asked after Remus watched with mounting dread as the window was wheeled down. Maybe everything would be fine, he thought as Anne's cool tone played out indistinctly but the officer looked sombre as he stepped back from the dark blue door;

"Could you please step out of the car for me Ma'am?" The officer asked and Remus closed his eyes as the door swung open and Anne stepped unsteadily out. Fuck.


	28. Young

**A/N: My summer is all set up and it had made my day so much exponentially better that I actually wrote what I wanted to without it being abominable, HORAY!**

"Have you been drinking?" The policed officer asked and Anne shook her head no;

"Why? Have you?" She crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side lightly, the smell of alcohol so heavy in the air it verged on becoming a tangible solid as the blue flash of the polices bike siren illuminating the mans shining badge and Anne's composed face rhythmically;

"Sir, could you come over here please?" The man in the uniform directed Remus and he sighed wearily;

"Yeah, sure, could you put the handbrake on?" he called to the front and Anne smiled and waved down to him;

"Yeah John, no problem!" Anne shouted back unnecessarily loudly considering they were only the length of a relatively small car away as she dove into the driver seat and put on the brake, smiling back at Remus through the back window. Remus sighed wearily before walking up to the front of the car and giving the policeman a weak smile;

"Names?" the man demanded flipping open a small note book in a rather dramatic gestures and narrowing his eyes, Anne snickered before nonchalantly slipping her hand into Remus's and tugging it over shoulder swiftly;

"This is John Young and I" she gestured to herself before holding out a hand; "am Shauna Young as of yesterday evening!" she bounced her hip against Remus who looked thoroughly bewildered but cleared his throat and tried to laugh along, "Wahey." cried Anne and Remus smiled shyly, trying not to come off as totally mortified;

"Ah," the guard muttered as he made a big show of writing out their fake names, mouthing the words as he wrote them with the occasional accusatory glance at the so-called newly weds. "Can I see your license Ma'am?" he asked and Anne shook her head;

"No no I wasn't driving, I haven't got one." the man leaned forward to look into the car;

"The keys are in the ignition." he pointed out rather uselessly as Anne frowned lightly and inhaled at the officers shoulder;

"Is that ganj?" she asked wrinkling her nose;

"What?" said both the police officer and Remus, the officer rather gruffly as his cheeks coloured and Anne's mouth fell open in shock as she laughed;

"Weed, you've had some weed;" and it took a tremendous amount of will power for Anne to not ask if he had any left. She smelt the air again and nodded; "I'm sure of it," Remus inhaled deeply;

"I'm not sure I smell anything A- Shauna… love." he added with suspiciously narrowed eyes and the officer appeared increasingly flustered as he lowered his note book slightly;

"You clear this heap off the road, I have to forward a call to the station and screen your names." and Anne rolled her eyes;

"Make sure to scribble your own name down there for possession of illegal narcotics." and Remus cursed inaudibly as he awaited for the mans infuriated reaction but to the werewolf's surprise he just turned on his heel and marched off back toward his bike, Anne was rather passed caring, her temper bubbling away in her stomach;

"Get pushing." she snapped, the sandy haired wizard turned to look down at Anne with her dreamy blue eyes distractingly close to his and pretending he hadn't heard a word she said he moved to the back of the car and pushed as he heard Anne release the Handbrake, once the car moved off the side of the road a slight curve of a drive allowed it to slide into place and Remus sighed with relief as some of the weight began to carry itself. A moment later Anne stood back up out of the car;

"Right you lovebirds, get over here." The stumpy helmet wearing man ordered them back and Anne found she liked him less and less as she hastily demanded that Remus follow her lead before stomping toward the officer;

"Are we good to go along our merry way then?" she asked with derisive false sweetness and the mans scowl deepened, Remus felt as though he was about to witness a fight to the death;

"Listen Ms. I would recommend you lose the attitude or you might find yourself under arrest now give me your names, your real names this time. Any more funny business and I'll leave you in a cell to rot for the night before you can say; I'm so sorry I'll do anything." Anne thought this was a bit extreme and decided to respond in kind as her lip curled into a sneer;

"If you so much as take a step closer to me I will formally report you for the use of illegal drugs." The officer crossed his arms before sniffing and taking a step closer;

"Uh… Shauna?" Remus asked and Anne silenced him with a glare, he had a feeling he was going to have to perform some sort of confundus charm if he wanted the maid of honour to be out of jail for his best friend wedding.

"I've got it under control Sweetheart." Anne gushed jovially through furiously gritted teeth.

"You clearly don't realise the severity of the situation you're in. Name please." and Anne snorted rolling her eyes, seeming more like the girl Remus had seen so much of when they had first met, stubborn, derisive and almost intimidating terrified, as if her fear was like a weapon.

"You think so?" she asked snippily stepping into the mans personal space and the man realised something about the look in the dull girls shiny eyes made his stomach turn, the man of authority suddenly felt like the wiry young woman's prey. "You feel that?" she breathed and the moment was obscenely tense, the pressure only broken by Anne bursting into giggles and shoving the middle aged man causing him to land on his arse on the ground, she then ran a few yard up the road and kicked his moped onto its side with a clatter.

"What are you doing?!" Remus questioned, aghast, as he ran to her side in a futile attempt to stop her but she simply grabbed the young wizards wrist and sped off with him in tow before he had even really stopped moving. She glanced back with ludicrously bright blue eyes and a flash of a grin, she looked thoroughly invigorated;

"Come on Lup- Young!" she cried exuberantly almost drowning out the gruff threats of the policeman on the ground. He didn't really have much choice but to follow her as she dragged him into the undergrowth beneath the hedgerow by the surprisingly rural estate road. Her grip moved to his sleeve but didn't loosen as she ran ahead laughing by the light of the blessedly waning moon batting branches from the level of her eye and even though they were in what he could sense was a deepening forest he did not feel the creature stir, as if even the beast was content with her. His body began to ache and his breath began to rasp as he heard her pant just ahead, laughter still tinting her breath but then she suddenly stopped as he heard a light splash. He looked down as she did and realised she had run head long into a creek as she groaned. She had stopped just short of pulling him in with her but her hold on his abused pale paisley-print shirt sleeve still refused to let up.

"God I am so drunk I can barely feel the water's cold." she rasped, still out of breath and then she stared up at the moon for a minute as she scratched her stomach, he didn't look up with her, he couldn't, he could barely admit that the moon light suited her, panting and flushed. She pulled him a little closer my his shirt cuff and smiled as she slipped her hand into his and pulled herself carefully from the water. She toed off her squelching faux leather shoes and nude stockings before wiggling her toes in the pebbly soil causing a light crunching. She inclined her head toward the deepening plunge pool of the babbling brook.

"Feeling brave Lupin?" she asked having at last caught her breath;

"Do you really think that's a good idea Mrs. Young?" he asked dryly, his voice as hoarse as ever and the once shy girl snorted;

"I'm all out of good ideas." she smiled and he shook his head, a light smile somehow finding its way onto his face.

"There is something odd about this place." he confessed as he watched the moon cast reflection of the reasonably still plunge pool dance along Anne's faraway blue eyes.

"No there isn't, this is one of those moments that makes perfect sense." and he found himself squeezing her hand before pulling his free;

"Come on." he mumbled before tugging her shoes from her hands and staring at her bare feet on the bramble infested ground. "I should carry you." and Anne seemed to sag slightly with relief;

"Oh, Remus I thought you would never ask!" She ran around behind him and lithely hopped up onto his back securing her thighs over his hip and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Where to?" he asked as she softened against him;

"Pub?" she murmured hopefully into his hair, her hot breath making his skin tingle, he tried to remind himself that she was drunk but judging by how quickly the attempt at decorum passed, he was more than a bit tipsy himself. Well, it was the night before the wedding, he wouldn't be the only one to wake up hung over tomorrow.

"You have quite the nose on you." he observed trying to change the subject as they trudged rather aimlessly through the undergrowth and Anne snorted;

"All the better to smell ganj with my dear." she explained as she linked her arms around the shoulder of her pretend husband.

"Did you really drink that whole bottle of scotch?" he asked as he heard the beeping of a set of pedestrian traffic lights to their left and made for the general direction through the trees. Anne shook her head against his back;

"Gave a glass away and then I spilt a fair amount what with the dramatic lamenting cycle I was enjoying before I lashed myself against your car." her breath continuing to flutter through his hair as she spoke; "That looks like a pub to me, what do you think?" she asked sounding disconcertingly hopeful as she pointed toward some warm lighting through a broken part of the foliage;

"I think it's an off licence." he responded poking a cut on the inside of his mouth left from his fangs during the moon with his tongue as he readjusted his grip on her legs.

"Even better, we can drink on the side of the road it'll be amazing!" she announced almost bouncing up and down on his back with the excitement of the simple thought of getting drunk along a road side, well, more drunk.

"Maybe we should just lay low for the-" he tried to suggest gently but she simply huffed and cut across;

"Let me down I'll just run the rest of the way." and before he could object she clambered from his back gracelessly and stuck her tongue out at him before taking off in a dead sprint toward the fortunately dead road with more speed than Remus could have logically anticipated, though he had of course known she was athletic but she was drunk and rather bashed up and had no shoes on. After another moments hesitance he bit his lip and followed her.

"I've been so restless recently," she muttered as she stared down the shelves of alcohol that were being sold at what was indeed an off licence as Remus had guessed; "I feel like I'm never doing what I want to be doing no matter what and there is nothing I can do to change it." Remus nodded, noting wearily that she seemed to keep readjusting her weight after barely catching her balance at the shop step as if she were trying to find a position that was the least irritable, a dance he knew well;

"Anne, I know you're drunk, are you sure you want to be telling me this?" Anne straightened and looked at him seriously for a moment, as if calculating something;

"Remus do you want rum or vodka?" she asked as if it was of the greatest importance and Remus sighed deeply before giving up;

"Do they have no whiskey?" and a large grin broke across Anne's face, lighting her eyes and the oppressive fluorescent lighting of the whole room as she seemed internally illuminated;

"Now we're talking." she announced as she grabbed two bottles of bargain basement Whiskey and made her way to the counter;

"Do you even like whiskey?" Remus asked, Anne snorted;

"It all tastes like piss to me." a few minutes later they sat on a low lying wall by the side of a large shopping market which looked to have been almost completely out of business except for one small, rather dodgy looking hardware which was of course, closed anyway. Their feet dangled just a half foot above the ground as Anne struggled to open a packet of nuts;

"Thanks for- ngh-" she pulled at the wrapping with her teeth to no avail " trying to help me out Remus, you didn't have to after I had told you to go fuck yourself and that."

"Do you want help with that?" he eventually asked as he pulled the pack from Anne's grip and pulled the car keys from his pocket with the clink of cheap metals tapping off one another before using one of them to jab the packet open;

"Cheers." she smiled as she took them back before she began to throw them up in the air and attempt to catch them in her mouth, Remus watched for a moment before shaking his head and staring back up at the light polluted sky;

"It's alright, all of it, it's fine." he muttered, clearing his throat;

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked a curious lilt in her voice, she didn't pause from her nut competition having just broken a personal best of two in a row. Remus looked at her wistfully as she eventually lost concentration and turned to face him, a nut falling out of the air beside her and bouncing off the side of her hair before slipping into the front of her coat unnoticed, Remus laughed lightly;

"You are just not what I expected you to be." he said, his thumb running lightly over the rim of his barely touched whiskey;

"That's funny;" Anne smiled; "Because you are exactly how I expected, really."

"How's that?" and Anne eventually broke the rather intense eye contact with the mans amber gaze to take a large swig from her bottle before leaning to her fellow werewolf slightly;

"Oh, you know, I thought you would be as you look, sort of bookish and shy, a little mysterious with your scars and everything." Remus laughed lightly and took a small sip from his bottle;

"Do you think I have behaved like someone shy?" he asked, the air of the summer night was heavy and rested like dew across their skin as they stared at each other once more and a car whizzed by momentarily illuminating s small scar rested on Remus's jaunty smile in a yellow light, making them both a little nervous at the thought of being caught by the police on his moped again;

"I think you're shy by nature Remus, certainly cautious but it's as though there is another power battling your yielding mind, I understand, I'm a very emotionally responsive woman." Remus tried to think of Anne as nothing more than a plain melodramatic muggle but his breath still shuddered as he inhaled her scent of whiskey and caramel, she was so much more to him.

"Is that so?" he asked and had it been any closer to either side of the moon he would have been on her before he could stop himself, but he had some control, every minute that moved by the wolf moved further away, with every phase of the waning moon he felt more restrained.

"Always have been."

"You don't seem it." he observed as he thought of how often she simply sat staring out of her hardened blue eyes with detached indifference, how could you accuse a woman who denied herself so much of being such a romantic?

"If I had reign over my heart don't you think I would have moved on from Sirius long ago? I wouldn't have kissed you or run away from home or just screamed and cried all over everyone in general." she took another swig from her bottle; "I certainly wouldn't be sitting here with you getting piss drunk."

"You were piss drunk when I found you." she pulled the bottle away from mouth with a glassy pop and wiped her wet lips on the back of her coat sleeve.

"You call that finding me?" she asked, an eyebrow raised;

"Point taken." he acquiesced and Anne grunted as she tipped her head back to better appreciate the sky;

"What time is it?" she asked and Remus checked his enchanted watch;

"late." he replied

"What?"

"I'm late," he stared up with her; "I'm supposed to be at Sirius's stag do."

"Elena didn't organise one." Anne shrugged as she tipped her bottle at a precarious angle to continue drinking;

"Isn't that your job?" he pulled her bottle from her mouth, scowling; "and would you slow down?" he said in a sharp tone making Anne pout as she noted the harshness off his amber eyes, something usually so retained burned slightly brighter in the moon light;

"Well I did all the bride stuff for her, I organised everything so I assumed she would do some of the bridesmaid stuff." Remus placed her bottle on his opposite side and turned to look down into her eyes;

"I thought Lily and Elena have been organising the wedding together." he stated looking for a trace of the deception her knew was there and Anne shrugged;

"I did loads, trust me." she stated dismissively and she thought of all the hours spent twirling in front of Lily in various wedding dresses when she had been in Elena's body. She even shuddered a little as she remembered all the different samples of fruit cake, she hated fruit in cake, it made her gag. She reached across Remus's lap for the whiskey but Remus took the bottle and held it high over their heads;

"Anne you've had enough, you're going to give yourself blood poisoning if you drink much more." he warned as Anne began to tug at his shirt sleeve in an effort to retrieve the bottle. She soon pulled her gaze off the bottle and turned her pleading gaze to face him, a bare two inches lay between them as she fixed him with a surprisingly sharp look considering he was fairly sure she would be unable to support her own weight at this point;

"Come on Remus I'm a grown woman I'm entitled to make my own bad decision." and her tongue darted out to wet her lips as she glared at him through narrowed eyes;

"Uuh.." he took a shaky breath as Anne's grip on his sleeve softened and she let her hand slide down his arm to rest on his rib cage;

"Are you ok?" she frowned at him, her eyes searching his;

"I'm a little nervous." he blurted and Anne blushed as she put a small amount of distance between them, not nearly enough, her cold hand slipping softly to his waist;

"Because of me?" she asked seemingly perplexed and Remus nodded, swallowing dryly;

"Of course because of you Anne, don't persist as though you know nothing of my feelings for you." and Remus allowed his arm carrying the whiskey to sink to his side, the bottle reconnecting with the brick word of the car with an odd clink of stone against glass;

"You have never acted on them Remus, you never sought me out." and there was an unasked question there as Remus cleared his throat, he was definitely nervous, his heart began to thump loudly in his chest and even Anne could feel her breath stutter as she heard it;

"You must believe me when I say I am not the sort of man a girl should be getting involved with, I'm sort of dangerous, I have a… a temper, it can get out of hand." and Anne kissed him, again, as he said this because if the reason Remus was running away was the same reason Anne found him so fascinating then Anne had to prove that werewolves were still worth loving because if they weren't then neither was she, the kiss lasted only a minute, intense, wet and tasting of whiskey;

"You're drunk." Remus whispered hoarsely over her mouth but he kissed her back, one light short kiss that made Anne blush deeper because damn it all she couldn't believe how far from being used to kissing she was and he was so… softly spoken;

"Yeah." Anne agreed as she kissed the corner of his lip, the edge of her mouth brushed with a slightly raised silvery scar; "Do I seem different to you Remus? From that night at your apartment, before you threw me out?"

"Yes."

"and why do you think that is?" was she really going to tell him? He wondered, assuming that she still didn't know it was his fault that she switched bodies with her sister, how could she?;

"I-"

"Shouldn't you at least ask? Maybe it's not what either of us think." she shrugged closer to him, laughing slightly;

"This isn't about what happened between you and Elena, is it?" and Anne ran a hand into his hair, trying to get used to feeling him as if it wasn't strange for her;

"What happened between me and Elena, Remus?" and in that moment Anne knew that Remus knew more about the body swap than he had let on and she just knew it made sense as she smelt that same musk of the forest on his skin. It made excellent sense, what were the odds that a group of people who knew all about werewolves, and Lily about potions would show up at the exact same time that Anne and Elena were to switch bodies in some freak magical incident? not bloody likely, that was for sure.

"It was my fault." in that moment he wanted, quite desperately, to tell her but he was cut off as Anne's hand was placed over his mouth;

"I don't want to talk about it, I don't care," she kissed her fingers over his mouth; "I'm sick of talking about it;" she slipped her hand from his mouth to rest on the back of his neck, her blue eyes burning, shot with flecks of amber he had never noticed before; "I'm so sick of talking." and she pressed her body against his with relief as she kissed him again, the knew lustful flame set within her belly sparking easily into a bonfire as she ran her hands up into his hair. The volatile animal within Remus having to be forcibly kept at bay as she opened her mouth to him that he was barely even aware of his hands moving over her thigh and over her slight hip. The kiss was hot and drunk and slightly clumsy and Remus could feel his control slipping away until he had to break the kiss with a groan in an effort to regain it.

"I shouldn't-" he began;

"Oh fuck off." Anne growled and she was on him again, the fog in her mind, the oblivion to sweet for her to let it go for the sake of Lupin's attempt to reunite with his long lost chivalry. Why had they wasted so much money on alcohol when the answer was right there all along in his touch? He could purge her mind of anything, with him, there was nothing but where to put your hands next and how much skin was available. She scowled as she ran her hands over the cotton of his shirt and the roughness of his jeans;

"What's wrong?" He asked against her swollen lips;

"Clothes." and he laughed a little nervously as her steadily warming hand slipped under his shirt;

"We're in the middle of the street." he spluttered as she ran her nails over the sensitive scars latticed across his chest and as if to prove his point a taxi flew by with a man hanging out the window, the redhead wolfwhistled with impeccable timing as he passed. Surrendering, Anne sighed, turning her head slightly so her lips brushed against his cheek, feeling the slight roughness of almost invisible stubble, probably just a days worth;

"We're not drunk enough." she said as if there was an answer written on the base of her bottle and he heard the bottle of whiskey clank off the wall again as she lifted it and brought it to her lips taking a deep swig and coughing. She pressed it into his grip forcefully and he put the bottle to his lips for a taste but Anne kindly tipped the bottle to an obscenely obtuse angle so that he ended up drinking twice as much as intended and spluttering in a manner reminiscent of Anne a moment later.

"Now we're getting some where." she muttered as he took the bottle in his hand;

"Finish this." she ordered and she hopped off the wall before tip-toeing across the broken Tarmac of the car park.

"Where are you going?" he asked as she reached into the various pockets of her coat before emerging with a tissue and smiling.

"A creek runs down around the back of the centre." she announced happily;

"So?" he asked and she stared at him blankly before batting a hand about and heading off;

"So I'm going for piss, drink your whiskey."

"You could have lied." he called after her but she just waved him off again as she marched away. He felt the itch in his skin wane slightly as a thick cloud moved over the moon and trying to remember where he had left his hangover-be-gone potion in his flat Remus downed about a half of the bottle before Anne's triumphant return rustling over loudly with a metal trolley she had pulled from the side of a dilapidated shop with a letter missing from its name which now spelt T sco. As Anne met his eye she grinned and leapt lithely into the trolley in a manner that Remus doubted he would have managed sober and due to the slope of the car park she rolled unsteadily over to him. She probably would have passed him as she shifted into a spin but he reached out and caught the front of the trolley causing it to swing round and bang off the edge of the wall forcing a shriek from Anne and Remus to cry out in pain as the contraption whacked a still-healing bruise on his forearm sharply;

"What did you say?" asked Anne with wide eyes in a startled tone as the trolley stopped clattering and stilled;

"I said: ow." Remus responded dryly and the tension broke as Anne snorted;

"Oh." and they both began to laugh at their own absurdity;

"Any particular reason you thought you would borrow this death cage?" he asked and Anne folded her arms and raised her chin;

"Why are you jealous?" and Remus shook his head sipping from his bottle;

"No." Anne narrowed her eyes;

"That's just because you don't know how much fun it is." she retorted

"Really?" Remus asked in his unthreatening hoarse modulation as he stepped down off the wall and leaned forward over the edge of the trolley, pausing as his lips were but an inch from Anne's coyly curved mouth;

"Yes?" she eventually responded but it was more of a question than an answer. She took the bottle from him and ran her thumb along the smooth rim as her eyes flickered down to stare at his mouth still damp with liquor. His breath whispered over her lips as he chuckled and there was a moment of tension as she met his unexpectedly predatory stare. Suddenly the silence was broken by the tinny sound of momentum being built in a bargain value cart and she was screaming as he whirled it around to face the empty expanse of the roughly hewn rundown car park and raced forward causing her to bump around insecurely as they rattled forward. Shrieks of fear and pleasure tore from the slim woman as they barrelled about, the less than sober man steering the unstable apparatus stumbling several times and laughing by her ear.

Her left hand clutched onto the side of the cart for dear life her right hand clamped around the bottle, thumb over the top with equal abandon as she pleaded with Remus to stop following a sharp turn which caused two of the wheels to come off of the ground, he complied quickly, balancing his slightly precarious drunken self to pull the trolley to stand still. Her shrieks died down quickly as she turned to him, looking confused;

"You stopped." she pointed out and he nodded, panting slightly, looking a little contrite;

"Do you need a hand getting out?" He asked;

"Why did you stop?" she responded sounding disappointed and he raised his eyebrows;

"Because you screamed 'You better fucking stop this minute or I will murder you and put an end to everything you hold dear'?" he tried and she just laughed turning dangerously in the tipping tray, she lent forward and kissed him warmly, moving back to flash a mischievous smirk;

"I wasn't being serious." she said in a playful tone and Remus secured the trolley with one hand to place the other on his hip;

"Oh really?" he quizzed as her eyes trailed over his figure with blatant appreciation making him swallow heavily; "Is that why you said 'I am completely bloody Sirius you tyrant'?" and she looked him in the eye once again;

"Are you drunk enough to start making bad decision yet?" she asked him kneeling up in the trolley and he could smell her arousal and he had forgotten how provocative it was as he cleared his throat and tried to find some sense but it didn't seem to be working;

"uuuhm." he attempted to say something logical;

"Get me out of this trolley Lupin." she ordered, her eyes set on him in a predatory gaze and feeling his skin tingle he tried to gauge how drunk he was;

"Yeah, Ok." he agreed and she passed him the whiskey which he put on the ground beside him before he placed his hands on her waist and she placed hers on his shoulders and leaning forward she swung her legs out of the trolley and caught one leg around his thigh before lowering herself slowly so that her bare foot touched delicately onto the cool dry ground and her hands rested against his chest. Feeling his hard length press against the inside of her thigh made a shudder run over Anne's skin.

"That's more like it." she hissed and overcome, he kissed her again, demanding and passionate she whimpered lightly against his mouth, pressing closer to him and making him grown as he ran a hand up beneath her coat along her rib cage through the thing fabric of her dress while slipping the other into her hair and tipping her toward him and there it was. Silence, emptiness, just him, just him and his hand and everything else was like an echo so quiet it could have been a dream. She was free, she could escape, she could just give herself over;

"What's the matter?" she asked as he seemed to lose intensity;

"Clothes." he grumbled as he tugged unhappily at her dress.

"Oh, right…" she hissed and she laughed lightly before bending to grab the bottle from the ground and pulling Remus back across the car park to retrieve her sodden shoes;

"We can't get back to mine…" his whiskey addled brain failing to come up with any solid answers;

"We better not forget the ceremony tomorrow…" she muttered;

"How could we forget?" he laughed and Anne gave him a calculating look;

"Remus a moment ago I almost forgot my own name."

"Really?" he asked with his usual mild manner, his eyes slightly alight and Anne, though Lord knows she hated to stroke the male ego figured that she couldn't do to much damage as she hopped over the car park wall and held out a hand to him;

"Really." they walked up the road, around by a pub which Anne ran toward happily until realising it was long closed and later by rows of increasingly posh looking houses until they saw a police car patrolling up through the road and they both tensed;

"Act natural Anne whispered as she threw the whiskey bottle into a bush like only an incredibly drunk person would think sensible to do and causing a smash of glass. One of the officers who had been glancing in their direction suddenly tapped her partner on the shoulder and pointed over, looking exasperated he nodded before playing out two siren calls and flashing the red and blue lights as he indicated to turn toward them, waiting for the traffic lights to allow them through even though the intersection was dead;

"Is everything ok over there?" the police woman's voice rang over the intercom and the two werewolves gaped for another moment before deciding for some liquor addled reason then running away as fast as your legs can carry you is far less suspicious than giving a thumbs up and a wave.

The car quickly pulled around the corner as the unlikely pair ran through a side gate into some ones garden. The screech of tyres indicated the application of the breaks on the police car and it was followed by the slamming of doors as Anne and Remus jumped up to grab the back of the garden wall and hoist themselves over it, Anne eventually having to tug Remus by the back of his shirt before they jumped down off the other side.

"You need to exercise more often Lupin." she panted as they ran out through a small thread of fancy market stalls which had been covered over, a shutter pulled down ahead of them over a small arcade of organic produce. "Fucking uppity fat free markets." she observed;

"Where I come from walls aren't that much of an obstacle." he groused and Anne gave him a strange look before realising she recognised a building on the edge of the road.

"Look." she pointed at the church and Remus cocked his head to the side before they heard one of the officers shouting something obscenely theatrical like;

"Stop in the name of the law." and they both groaned before pelting toward the building;

"This way!" She moved around to the side of the church and Remus was relieved and surprised to see she had located an unlocked door which opened onto the side of some sort of alter. Running to the other side of it she opened another door leading outside and having followed her Remus was about to run through it before Anne grabbed his hand;

"No, come on." she whispered and her voice echoed around the space along with the clatter of their steps as she pulled him into a small room at the side of the muggle church and closed the wooden door allowing only stain glass tinted moon light to trickle through the grid at its front. A moment later they fought to keep their breathing under control as the male police officer stumbled into the church and shined a torch around the space, its light flashing into the box they were jammed into for a heart stopping moment before the man turned to the other open door and spoke into a box on his shoulder;

"The church is clear, they've exited through the North-East side." and slamming the door he had entered through with a deafening crash the officer took off in a sprint toward the other door, closing it behind him.

Their stifled whiskey breath began to rip from them in dizzying pants as they adjusted carefully to slump to the ground. Sweeping back a red curtain, Anne revealed another small nook of space and lay back into it.

"What is this?" Remus asked, too drunk to be careful not to sound like an ignorant wizard;

"I take it you're not religious, it's a confession box. Priest goes there," she pointed to a small bench that had been placed on the opposite side of the curtain, "and the _Sinner…_" she pointed to the cushion Remus was sitting on "goes there," she smirked as she sat up, leaning toward him suggestively;

"Is that so?" he asked, still flushed but his husky quiet voice returned more or less to normal, perhaps, with a slight slur.

"You confess your sins." she told him now just an inch away;

"I'm not sure how to put them into words Anne." and he ran his ran his hand across her collar bone, watching her the line of her throat shudder with each breath as he savoured the scent of her arousal, the anticipation as his gaze flashed back to meet her soft blue eyes, he moved close to her and dipped his head to place a hot wet kiss on her pulse, making her shiver, he could hear her heart, he pulled his lips from her neck, she could hear his.

"Maybe a demonstration then, Mr. Lupin." and his hand slipped down over her shoulder taking her coat with it;

"Are you sure that's proper?" he asked in a teasing tone placing a light kiss over her décolletage as he ran a hand up her leg.

"Do I give a fuck?" she asked laughing and as he laughed along with her, another kiss, she thought for a moment how Remus had always come off as insecure, could this really be the same person as the boy who used to sit at the edges of the pub throwing furtive glances at everyone and only breaking silence to exchange words with Sirius. The thought was quickly banished how ever as his mouth met hers and her fingers began a furious argument with his shirt buttons as he made short work of his jeans kicking them off hurriedly and making Anne giggle as it caused the confession box to rock;

"Shh shh.." Remus shushed her as he kissed her slowly and she eventually managed to slip his shirt down over his pale shoulders, still smiling she arched her back so that he could pull her dress off over her head, they were almost successful until Anne got caught half way out bumped her head off one of the wooden sides which opened with a creek;

"I guess that's another door…" Remus muttered as he reached up and closed it again before pulling Anne to stand; "come here." he muttered only pausing in kissing her as he ran his hand over some oddly textured skin on Anne's hip which he stepped back against the wall to see in the dim light but catching on Anne sprung up and wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing herself against him as his hand moved to the tempting flesh of her bum to support her and turned her into the wall for some leverage. Her mouth was on his quickly, her hands in his hair as he stood grinding against her making the confession box creek and causing Anne to smile cheekily as she was brought back to her surroundings from the fog that was Remus Lupin.

"I want you." he blurted over her mouth as he thrust against her. Anne watched the ripple of his pale terrifyingly scarred, bruised skin, which for all the hurt it promised her as the full moon beckoned Anne couldn't help but find incredibly erotic.

Slipping her legs free of his grip Anne stood before him, her slender silhouette just visible as his eyes adjusted to the darkness cast by his shadow over her, little fleur-de-lys patches of light shaped by the grid danced over her face and across her heaving lace clad breasts;

She drops to her knees on the ground and pulls him by his hand so that he knelt in front of her, she stared at him, pushing him onto his back, forced to keep his knees bent to fit in the cramped space which makes her smile. She ran her nails over his front, slightly lighter over two or three mottled bruises along his rib cage that she was afraid to provoke.

The slightly tipsy incredibly horny werewolf tried to memorise her sun-kissed skin as best he could, his eye fixed for a moment on the odd way the light fell at the top of her thigh as she slipped out of her underwear before she settled on top of him. Pulling her bra off Anne whacked her elbow of the side of the confession box and they both chuckled for a moment as she lent forward over him. Their laughter died as Anne kissed him on the mouth so softly it was almost torturous before following with a trail for each of the scars along his lightly defined chest, her kisses slow and hot, one of his hands held in hers the other weighed heavily on her waist, holding her close as he revelled in the silky softness of her supple breasts brushing over his abdomen.

"I was wrong, you aren't at all how I expected." she breathed and he wondered how she could form any coherent words at all. He rocked his hips up toward her and she took the opportunity to free him from his briefs. He groaned appreciatively as his cock brushed against her satin abdomen and again when she wriggled provocatively against his impossibly hard length in a bid to kick his underwear out of the way.

"What?" he asked remembering she had said something and she trembled at the sound of his soft voice so thick with arousal.

"I just mean…God you're so fit." she slurred against his cheek as she took in his warm earthy scent before they shared another hot primal whiskey kiss that cause Anne to whimper and she was allowed to dwell for a few more sweet liberating moments in the oblivion of his scent and touch and taste. His mouth began to work along her throat as her finger drew tantalising patterns on his thigh creeping closer to his cock now painfully hard. Then the cruel woman allowed her hand to still all together as she slumped forward with a sigh and pressed herself flush against him;

"Anne." he growled, having thoroughly run out of patience as he thrust his weeping cock up against smooth belly and almost came from that alone.

"Merlin, Anne!" It took a moment in his drunken thought process for him to work out when no reaction came that she had passed out (which if Remus had been in any way sober he would have realised to be inevitable considering she had more to drink since he had bumped into her than he had had all year).

"Still a tease." He grumbled as he rolled onto his side and pulled her back into his chest. For a moment Remus contemplated waking her up but before he could really finish forming the thought he had already fallen asleep, maybe he was more tipsy than he thought...

**A/N: and now I am late for college, anywho, enjoy!**


	29. Distraction

**A/N: I have no idea what is going on…**

**Distraction**

Elena tried to stand still as Lily Potter finished pinning her hair into place, she stared at her scarred face in the mirror and sighed. She hadn't spoken to Sirius since they had discussed his being a wizard and yet later that day they were to be married. Her eyes flitted up momentarily to the face of the green eyed woman hovering over her, the red-head keenly focussed on her task didn't notice any of the brides bitter envy. Lily Potter was beautiful and happily married with a baby and the freckles dusted over her cheek bones and the pink blush of her lips lent her such delicacy that Elena could almost see the kindness and purity rippling off of her, flowing in the space around her like a warm embrace. Elena was not like that, even when she had her beauty it had been like a controlled shine brought forth by excessive polishing that had almost worn her to the bone and what had it all been for? Her persona, her face and hands and body, her life's work, it had all been for not. She would go to marry a man who she knew in his heart didn't truly love her and as she fixed her veil over her face with cold hands she let her slight smile fall away because she had never doubted her own heart more. She cared for Sirius a great deal, they could make each other happy, she was sure of it, but if she really truly loved him then why was part of her relieved every time she handed back her blasted ring? Why couldn't she keep the damn thing on her manicured finger?;

"You look perfect." and of course, Lily's smile was genuine.

"Yes, I think the veil suits me," and Elena flipped it back to reveal her lacerated face which she was sure had only worsened since she had entered the room. "Have you gotten through to Anne?" Elena asked for what felt like the millionth time but as the wedding was only four hours away tension was beginning to build in her stomach like a not;

"No," Lily smiled reassuringly; "but one of the girls from your art appreciation group said she has been calling both the numbers you gave her off the hook and no one had answered yet." Elena bit her lip and turned in her chair to face the pretty young mother;

"What did my Mother say?" Lily shrugged;

"I haven't been talking to her but last I head Sirius said she won't say a word about Anne and neither will Mr. Chalk."

"I see, well thank you for everything Lily, I don't know what I would have done with out you. Which of the girls did you say has been trying to contact Anne for me? I am sure I owe her a thank you too."

"Oh I'm not sure," Lily scratched the side of her slim neck and squinted at the ground as she thought which Elena would have thought rather unrefined if the women didn't look so impossibly approachable and warm doing it; "she had dark sort of auburn hair, lovely ethnic accent… Sandy?" she tried and Elena felt the blood drain from her face;

"Sandra Keats?" she asked dryly and Lily snapped her fingers;

"The very same!" she smiled down at the petite blonde sat in her chair who sat fiddling nervously with the sleeve of her white satin dressing gown;

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked quickly and was met with the woman's impossibly wide blue eyes;

"I need to talk to Sirius." she announced springing up from her chair and Lily would have stopped her if she hadn't looked so very on edge;

"I suppose you aren't in your dress yet…" Lily shrugged but Elena had already moved out into the hall leading to the other rooms in the back side of the church and had pulled the third door open to find numerous objects magically floating around as James Potter sat sprawled across a cushy chair reading a newspaper with moving pictures and Sirius sat up on a wooden table idly waving his wand, she assumed he was responsible for the little knick-knacks whizzing about and shrieked as one came whizzing towards her, she ducked instinctually;

"Bloody hell!" James cried as he leapt up from his chair and his wand was in his hand and his paper crumpled on the ground before Elena had even managed to straighten her posture and place a hand over the damaged side of her face in a futile attempt to mask her scars. The items floating about the room came to an abrupt stop and clattered onto the floor as Sirius's head whipped round to face her;

"Well I'll just go…" James announced before running a hand through his already ridiculous hair and hurrying out of the room. Elena turned and watched him leave before turning back to Sirius who stood looking rather contrite;

"Elena, I-" she shook her head, tears began to gather in his eyes and he noticed her hands start to shake; "Elena? What's happened?" and his voice made her feel a little better as she crossed the room and pulled him so close it was like she was trying to become a part of him;

"Sirius I need you to promise me something." she spoke gravely, she blinked a few tears from her eyes;

"Why? Tell me what's upset you?" he asked as he smoothed his hands over the satin of her robe and felt the pliant softness of her body beneath, God it had been so long. He breathed in the scent of her hair and bit the inside of his cheek, that took him back…

" I have a feeling that something terrible is going to happen." she looked up at him, pale and slight;

"Are you nervous? About today, the wedding?" she smiled;

"I'm not afraid to marry you Sirius, I'm so proud that you have chosen me as your wife, I really am, it's not that it's… him." she watched him earnestly and he felt increasingly confused;

"Who?" he asked and Elena began to straighten her grooms grey tie which she had recommended to match his eyes;

"Sirius, it's like he thinks he owns me, I'm just worried that he'll come today, worried he'll try something. I need you to keep this door open or do some of your magic thing so that you know who is in the hall, I don't want him to ruin this. I'm scared." he cursed internally as he realised who she was talking about.

"Elena I'm here, I promise as long a I'm here everything will be ok." he smiled his most devastating smile and Elena relaxed a little;

"Promise me." she ordered and he quickly cast a sneak-alarm on her with a wave of his wand before he lent down to kiss her warped cheek;

"I promise, once I'm in the same building as you I'll know if you are in danger."

"Really? From just one little enchantment?" she asked admiring how handsome he looked in his suit;

"Well I'm a very talented wizard." he winked at her and she hummed agreeably as she stood on her toes to kiss him chastely;

"I'm inclined to agree." and he lifted her and placed her on the table as he leaned to kiss her again;

"God I missed you." he whispered as she freed him from her full lips and she smiled, she could see the jubilance slip from his grin, he loved her enough to marry her but she knew they weren't meant for each other or anything, but he was still hers, she would still be his. What they had was still beautiful;

"I should go and put my dress on." and slipped off the edge of the table making Sirius sigh as she moved to leave the room;

"What makes you so sure he'll come?" he asked and Elena hesitated in the door, she almost wanted to tell Sirius that she knew that her tormentors sister was in the church but she couldn't, just because Sandra was there didn't mean any of the rest of the Keats family would be so she shrugged and moved into the hall;

"Just a feeling I guess." So Elena moved and began the unending task of being correctly dressed for her wedding and Sirius, having not much else to do moved into the main body of the muggle church, mildly intrigued by the inner workings of muggle mythology. He stood at the front of the alter and sighed, the space in the large aisled building with its high ceiling and coloured glass was certainly peaceful;

"Oh no…" he heard a gravely feminine voice travelling out from the other side of the alter, "oh please no no no." and the creak off an untended hinge leaked through the almost silent space and Anne Chalk stumbled out from the opposite side of a wooden press in her creased cotton grey dress and a discoloured pair of leather unisex shoes, an outfit he smugly recalled from the day before. Her narrowed eyes skittered around the churches pews and tall windows sourly and then her eyes settled on Sirius and she looked even more green if that were possible, she sank to the ground;

"Oh fuck." she groaned hanging her head and covering her eyes;

"You alright there Annie?" he asked and the cantankerous youth rose to her full height and stalked towards him with, he noted, a slight limp remaining;

"Not now." she warned with a scathing look, her hair completely haywire and the space below her eyes tinged blue from lack of sleep.

"So, who's the lucky fellow?" she stared at him in his tux and felt furious, he was so beautiful, it was hardly fair and how could she still be pining for a man who didn't do anything for her sexually?

"I'm really not in the mood Sirius." she informed him and she began to run her hand through her hair and Sirius didn't even bother to look like he wasn't checking out the subtle curve of her breast through the thin fabric of her dress, no skin off his nose if she had decided to forgo a bra but of course no matter how much of a hungover condition you happened upon Anne Chalk there was really nothing she would be willing to let you away with, even if you were Sirius living-breathing-Adonis Black, which he, incidentally, was.

"For fuck sake Black I don't think I have ever looked more like a troll in my life, of all the times I don't think this is the one to start checking out my tits."

"Well what do you expect? You march out here with no bra and knickers on with your hair all mussed spitting fire, I'm only one man in the face of a woman so formidable." he smiled down at her and she sighed rolling her eyes. Something about Sirius made him easy to forgive, and something about the state she was in made it easy to forget… speaking of which.

"Do you know how I got here?" she asked, concerned;

"Haven't the foggiest, we've been looking for you everywhere, you and Remus, he never got back to the party last night and…" he trailed off staring at Anne, a large grin breaking across his face, "You didn't!" did he have to look so much like the human personification of a rainbow flavoured cupcake when he looked at her like that? Anne wondered as she pressed a mercifully cool hand to her heated face, "Oh you did! In the church?!" she nodded with sarcastic gratitude;

"Thanks for being mature about this Sirius, don't wake him till I'm fucking gone, right?" she threatened prodding a finger into his chest and Sirius raised his hands;

"Of course not dear sister." he smiled and Anne nodded, a reasonably affectionate response for her;

"Right, cheers, you're a peach. Can I borrow your coat?" she asked and he stared at her the soft outline of her nipples just about visible beneath her dress for a moment longer (it really had been a long time) and eventually took mercy on the woman and pointed to her left ankle;

"Sure thing, you might want to take your knickers from around your ankle before you go though, might want to put them on even.." and Anne scoffed, mortified as she noted her knickers caught around her foot, she had eventually stopped looking for them assuming the painfully handsome Remus Lupin was lying on them and not wanting to wake him had abandoned them along with her bra. She blushed slightly as the lean masculine lines of his body stood fresh in her mind for a moment, the heat of waking up flush with his hot skin. She couldn't bare being near him a moment longer, her animal libido driving her to do what she assumed she had already done last night. When Sirius left to retrieve his coat she stepped into her knickers and as she straightened up, pressed her face into her hands and released a few half sobbed laughs;

"Only you would be this daft girl." she whispered, she couldn't believe she had been so black out drunk the night before she had purged her mind of the memory of losing her virginity to Remus Lupin in a confession box. She thought for a moment she was going to be sick until Sirius re-emerged with his leather coat which she quickly slipped on before he could start eyeing her up again. She just couldn't comprehend how his presence could turn her on more than his touch, maybe she had really only torturously painstakingly loved the idea of him. She was a fool and damn if his coat didn't smell spectacular.

"I'll be back in time for the wedding." she informed him and she turned and quickly walked down the aisle of the pews leaving Sirius to stare after her before the door closed creakily behind her and he went to check if it was really one of his best men who had left Anne so ravaged and ruined. As he peaked through the latticed wood of the confession box he was able to see the familiar site of Remus sprawled on the ground, naked and exhausted, something you got used to seeing when you supervised your best friends transformation into a werewolf once a month. He was about to wake the sleeping wizard when suddenly he heard a purr from outside that rang in his stomach and he yelped;

"Bleeding muggle!" he cried as he raced toward the exit on the marble tiled floor and as he eventually crashed out through the doors he saw Anne revving up the throttle on his baby and he quickly ran toward her; "don't you dare!" he cried and he swung himself onto the bike expertly prepared to pull the keys from the ignition before Anne loosed the accelerator and they shot off, Anne whooping triumphantly and laughing as Sirius took over the steering and she just held on, her hands over his, as he steered them into a nearby shopping arcade and pulled into a stop and kicking down the stand.

"You better get off this bike in the next bloody second Chalk or you will be laughing out the other side of your face." he growled and she clambered off the bike without further prompting, still snickering and turned to one of the tellers from one of the neat market stalls;

"I'll take a coffee please." she smiled, pulling Sirius's leather jacket further around her as he stalked up behind her furiously his hands itching to rap around her slender little neck and suddenly the thought got all sexy as she turned around, her eyes alight with her own damn danger and he bloody hated it;

"You absolute mad bitch." he eventually managed and she smiled at him, reached into his coat pocket and produced a pair of sun glasses;

"God these are a gift." she grinned putting them on to sooth her burgeoning alcohol induced migraine; "Christ I'm going to need a paracetamol." she mumbled and the man at the kiosk promptly passed her a packet which she accepted gratefully; "Oi Black, give those to Remus, would you?" she requested as she tossed him half of the pack of tablets and took her coffee from the shop boy before passing him a handful of change from Sirius's pocket; "Thanks for the ride." she directed at Sirius and pushed the sun glasses further up her nose looking like quite a woman in her leather with her wicked unapologetic grin and the still obvious gravel of a night spent drinking more than she should have in her voice; "I'll see you at the ceremony." she promised the well dressed man who she noted as contrastingly imposing to herself before she span on her heel and tried very hard to look composed as she marched off. Of course he couldn't allow her to have the least word and he called after her;

"What brought all this rebel-without-a-cause stuff on?" he asked her and she paused, her back still facing him, knowing she couldn't turn around or he would see the smile drop like a tonne of bricks from her face;

"Live everyday like it's your last, isn't that what they say Black?" and the weight of her own mortality tore at her stomach as she washed some of her painkillers down with some coffee.

Sirius stared after her for a moment, watching her mousy mop of bed hair batter about in the wind and scowled. He would never in his life meet a woman as bothersome, he thought as he swung a leg over his enchanted motor bike before thundering back to the church. He took a moment outside to smoke a cigarette on the sly and when he was about half way through the packet and his throat was feeling dry and horrid he eventually paused, staring at the muggle cigarette in his hand indecisively. His moment of contemplation was disturbed a moment later as people started to gather at the entrance of the church and chatter in the early summer air. Grimacing he quickly moved to the back of the church, he couldn't stand to over hear the words "Has Mr. Black truly got no remaining family?" ever again in his life.

At the back of the church he inevitably lit the cigarette and was blowing smoke rings in what he thought was a rather sneaky nook before his fantasies of Elena in her lingerie, which focussed on oddly large amount on her lovely blue eyes, were interrupted by the clack of a shutter and an obnoxious flash typical of a muggle camera. Then a lovely laugh as he blinked away the spots that had disturbed is eyes to reveal the laughter's possessor. Of course as soon as his vision cleared the laugh gave itself away as it degraded into a snort that to anyone else would have been a source for down right mortification.

" Is it even possible for you to get embarrassed Chalk?" he asked and he smiled at her, he had forgotten how lovely she looked in that blue dress.

"I could ask you the same thing: Woah!" as she did a pantomimic recreation of his startled moment;

"Yes very funny." he sneered and couldn't place for the life of him why it felt like he had forgotten something.

"What are skulking back here for?" she asked glancing down at her muggle camera and frowning as she began to wind the reel with a zipping sound.

"I was just having a cigarette, who did your makeup?" he asked and Anne scratched the top of her thigh through her blue dress distractedly and Sirius frowned as he deduced that her bite was itchy.

"Lily just dabbed a bit of something on me and then went back in to deal with Elena who seemed very concerned as to your whereabouts, she said to make sure you were in the church." and as she looked up from her camera she noticed him staring at her hand over her scar and quickly moved it away, clearing her throat;

"Has it healed… well?" he asked awkwardly and Anne looked around a bit more, shrugging her delicate shoulder and making it hard for Sirius to look away from the length of her neck.

"Lily dabbed a little something on that too," Anne noticed the crowd at the front of the church getting smaller as silhouettes of people in posh hats began to shift across the other side of the stain glass windows as they moved inside. She was about to suggest that they go in when Sirius posture shifted as if he had suddenly remembered to panic and he cut across;

" What was that you said about Elena?" and there it was, that something he had been supposed to do, it was on the tip of his tongue, something Elena had been saying to him when he had been in that damn little chemise. Who was he kidding? He couldn't stay mad at that chemise…

"I think she just wants you close, it's rather swee-" and Anne was interrupted again by a streak of fiery red from the churches backdoor as it burst open and it was only then the two realised how close together they had been standing, the mousy haired feminist stumbled back then. Running her hands over her dress and trying to ignore the twinge in her hip;

"There you both are!" Cried Lily Potter and acting as if she didn't notice the guilty looks they seemed to sporting at being found together, pushing away her instinct that told her they were up to something Lily just pushed her flaming hair out of her face and bit her lip; "Sirius…" she tried and Sirius sobered exponentially looking the image of a responsible adult in his smart suit, of course, she knew better;

"What is it?" he asked, a sense of urgency over taking him as he tried again to remember what the exact concerns Elena had raised with him before Anne had fallen out of a muggle confession box with her knickers around her ankle. His old friends green eyes filled with concern as she watched his reaction carefully. She was clearly forced to be the bearer of bad news as she was sure James had purposely avoided doing by doing a terrible job of searching;

"Elena's gone." she eventually said and James scraggily head popped up over his wife's shoulder;

"No sign of the wedding party but look what I did find!" he smiled goofily as he waved a dainty bra around which Anne hoped no one took the opportunity to read the label on for fear they would notice it was a training bra most likely fitting a later blooming fifteen year old than a supposedly mature woman. "Oh I see we are two up!" the bespectacled best man grinned broadly;

"Did you spot Remus?" Sirius asked, staring at the simple bra fixedly until Anne elbowed him and he focussed rather wryly on his friend once more.

"No, it's like he's dropped of the face of the Earth," his hand holding the bra eventually fell to his side as he tilted his head, "why?" Lily huffed at this;

"Sirius, does it not concern you that Elena has… well, _vanished_ moments before you both are supposed to be getting married?" she asked and the groom seemed to be lost in thought for a moment and once again Lily saw the appearance of a responsible adult before the teenage hell raiser was back with a far-to-casual shrug and a dismissive hand wave;

"She's probably just off doing something girly, most of us are here, we should head to the alter and wait." and he slipped past Lily and James followed him automatically making Lily huff;

"James Potter!" she chastised as she turned into the church and pursued her husband for his marauding. The door whooshed closed and sealed itself with a click of finality that made Anne flinch and suddenly she doubled over and vomited gracelessly into the grass. They were going to get married, Elena and Sirius were going to be married:

"I can't do this." she confessed to the contents of her stomach staining the grass. The sight of it nauseating her further, she straightened slightly and spat and tried desperately not to cry; "Oh God why have you let me love him?" she asked the empty air angrily and she knew it was bad because it wasn't just any love, it was love with her soul, her body apparently couldn't care less. She swiped at her eyes and found no tears which made her laugh a horrible back words laugh that wasn't very much like laughter at all. Never for a moment did she think it would feel like this, she tried to think how it had come to this but no answer came. Only guilt and a creeping crippling feeling of inadequacy.

"My life is not my own." she told herself; "Every minute is stolen, I'm dying and I can't go out unless Elena is safe." she inhaled deeply before grimacing and spitting again; "They must have everything, if they have anything less then all my heart ache has been for nothing."

"Another fallen robin I see." came a voice and closing her eyes Anne side;

"Go back inside Sirius." she hissed and a chuckle emanated from the space behind her which sounded distinctly and when she turned around there stood a man who was both Sirius and very obviously not Sirius at all;

"Sorry to disappoint." the boy shrugged and Anne noted that he seemed a quiet sort of person, more likely the sort to walk by if he hears a love struck woman talking to herself in a brides maid gown about the one that got away outside of a wedding, not walk up and mock her;

"Who are you?" she snapped, eye narrowed and he looked stung;

"Regulus." he tried and she tilted her head which seemed to distress him further;

"Has Sirius not mentioned me at all?" and Anne started to feel a little sympathy for the stranger who was dressed in a rather odd blue suit that seemed to be put on as if it was the first time he had worn one;

"You must be a relation?" she eventually tried and he cast his eyes to the ground;

"I'm… well you know it's not important Miss. I'm sorry to interrupt your… whatever this is." and he turned on his heel and quickly marched around the side of the church and just as he had disappeared out of site Anne followed him;

"hold on a second." she called to him but when she rounded the corner he was no where to be seen, Anne deflated slightly and after staring up at the sun in the sky for a moment she turned and walked briskly into the church.

Taking a bouquet of violets from the edge of the alter Anne moved to stand beside two of Elena's most influential 'friends' and Lily, taking her place opposite James as maid of honour. As she entered people had just settled into her seats, her Mother eyeing her suspiciously from the front row but looking notoriously smug as she waited for her preferred daughter to arrive. She suspected her Father stood in the porch of the church just beyond the double doors at the end of the aisle. The room smelt of flowers and Anne clutched the bouquet unnecessarily tight as she stared at Sirius's hands, was she mistaken thinking they were shaking? He was nervous, she gulped dryly, she mustn't let herself ruin the vivacious moment for her two most beloved companions for they would live their lives and she was marked for death. Her body would reject the change, she was sure of it. They waited, a tense minute passes, Anne wonders how many they had sat through before she arrived. The next moment, the atmosphere seemed thicker, the anticipation almost unbearable as Anne shifted her weight from foot to foot in her impractical rather painful strappy shoes, as if she didn't already tower over all the women on the alter. Time slips by, the priest yawns, Anne's great Aunt Marna splutters wetly into a napkin and everyone is ready. An instant before it happened, Anne felt the moment coming as organ music broke across the church and everyone stood and turned back to watch Elena enter. Sirius, Anne was exasperated to note, was just staring at her with a look of blind panic and she tilted her chin toward the entrance of the church impatiently.

He took a breath before facing the door with everyone else. Tucking her bouquet under her arm and with her camera already wound it was through the small view finder that Anne saw the doors open and a confused Charles Chalk standing in the porch, very much alone. The organ continued to play as she lowered the camera and turned her attention to Sirius who stood unmoving staring in the space Elena was supposed to be. Another moment passed in which you could have heard a pin drop and then eventually the snarling Black turned toward the Ambulatory above the alter;

"Would you fucking shut that poxy organ up!" he shrieked and then he stormed off of the side of the stage back toward the dressing rooms where he most likely hoped to find Elena and Anne watched him go silently. She sighed softly as a ripple of whispers eventually erupted across the room, so her last act which she had already thought impossibly hard was to become harder. She had to fix this, for the sake of her niece or nephew and her twin sister and the love of her life and most importantly her own damn self respect. She had to do it, who would she be if she didn't?

**A/N: Thanks for everything, please let me know what you think!**


	30. Before

**Before**

(Before the ceremony)

Having successfully slipped into her grandioso dress Elena sat at her vanity staring at a selection of hats with small accompanying net, lace and feather detailing that could be pulled like a small veil over her face. Anne had been shocked when she had seen the extent of the scarring for the first time and as Elena felt the lacerations prickle she was sure the whole ordeal had made it worse. Magic, she sneered at the hats, magic had done it to her and Sirius had left the church after promising her he wouldn't and that made her face burn too. Why must magic only curse her and never benefit her except to draw attention to the lack of consideration the man she would be forever bound to had for her? The spell he had cast would not work when he wasn't there and she was scared. Lily kept leaving the room looking for people who were supposed to be relieving the stress of the day not causing it and each brief period of time spent alone heightened her fear and her irritation. At least in the short period Anne had spent with her she had had a decent idea, vintage white hats with their little veils originating cerca nineteen forty should help cloak the damage to her skin. Finally a solution to having to explain the previously unmentioned and rather odd damage to her face.

It was just good luck that James Potter was a wizard with a wife he was ever eager to please. Lily had immediately sent him away and once again curious at the actual extent of the power of these magical beings Elena was astonished when he returned with six hats in ten minutes.

"Anne gave an address for a shop." he shrugged and not dwelling on how Anne knew were to buy such things Elena had just thanked him. The moment of elation had passed though, she was once again sour with James and Anne and even Lily a little but more than anyone she was absolutely fuming over the behaviour of her groom. She felt abandoned and scorned and they hadn't slept together in over a month and it was not helping her mood. She was heavy with the symptoms of her still early pregnancy and her skin itched and she was a beast, a _beast_ in a ridiculous beauty beast curse and nothing was ok. If she wasn't pregnant she would be getting hammered, she glared at the champagne on ice sat out of the direct sunlight next to two opaque flutes. She was sure it would be perfectly crisp, she stepped over to it, just to check its year, just to indulge in her day dream for a moment, behave as if she was to have a tall glass followed by another. She automatically popped the cork as soon as she picked it up;

"oops." she giggled as the sparkling drink foamed over her hand, she sniffed the brim lightly;

"Simpler times." the girl whispered, cracking a grin almost wide enough to split her face, momentarily forgetting her anxiety as she read the label, it was a non-alcoholic imitation champagne, perfect. She noted another piece of paper around the spout:

"Don't want you too tipsy before the ceremony - Anne" and Elena smiled, who knew that even Anne could be discreet when she wanted to be. Pouring the champagne into one of the glasses she sat on the stiff couch and tried to ignore the smell of church and frankincense and convince herself she was getting drunk. She had never been to bad for alcohol although she had been known to drink alone often enough which was not a terribly good habit. When she finished the glass, savouring the cool refreshing liquid she did feel slightly light headed and laughed lightly at herself.

"Pull yourself together Elena, you're not drunk." she rolled her eyes, reaching over her chair to the counter with the mirror and selecting the hat she eventually decided was her favourite, the one that cast only a light shadow with lace but due to the small pinky red roses embroidered into its surface the colour of her scarring would be disguised. She covered her gored cheek and smiled a movie star smile at her reflection, it would have to do, the illusion was satisfactorily convincing. As the blonde bride-to-be clumsily poured herself a second glass of reportedly alcohol free imitation champagne Remus was sitting on the floor of the confession box in just his unbuttoned jeans with his head in his hands. An imprint of the carpet temporarily embossed on his scarred skin already beginning to fade as he continued to mope.

He simply had no clue what to do. Remus was an intelligent man, sometimes so much so that he was accused of being dull and unadventurous but then that came with being young and sensible. Being sensible was an unpopular trait but it was who Remus had always thought he was. He felt a desperate need to groan unendingly into his hands as he tried to uncloud his brain and remember what had happened the night before. Of course he had a wild streak, even as a boy, before the wolf, maybe even more so before the wolf he had broken the rules, he just wasn't in the habit of getting caught. Even in his most fiery moments, the true Remus had control, it was only when the wolf interceded that he lost that. The man never lost connection with sense and logic even if he allowed himself to be reckless it was always a choice. His tryst with Elena had been a choice, though if it hadn't been for a werewolf's ridiculous tendency toward sexual frustration it probably would have been a more hesitant one. But what had happened the night before, vague though his memories were, seemed so out of control in a terrifying new light. It had been so unlike him and he couldn't believe he had let himself do it because he knew how dangerous it was for a man like him to let go, never mind around someone like Anne. It was like she brought out a part of the man that he didn't even recognise, a part he wasn't sure he liked. He inhaled softly, her scent lingered in the small part of the muggle church, in the sinners box, the place a person goes to be confess, it was something carnal she fed within him, she had found the wolf in the soul of the man.

Anne had been very drunk when he had found her, he knew that, then their was the police and the forest and moon light making his skin itch. Then he started to drink and his memory brought him as far as a muggle super market and a kiss he was sure before they were running again. He remembered her taste and resisted the temptation to run his fingers over his lips as if he could recapture the touch. Her sweet voice, with words he couldn't place, her taught flesh virile under his hand. Then something, he remembered, there was something odd barely touched on in what he could pull to the forefront of his mind, her skin, when he ran his hand down over her smooth thigh and then her hip her skin changed, as he attempted to force his brain to complete the memory it slipped away as would a dream and he sighed. His breath building up condensation on his hands as he refused to move them away from his face. He simply couldn't handle the world, not Sirius or James, not some muggle wedding where everyone stared at his scars with sympathy instead of suspicion of all he couldn't even bare the thought of seeing Anne, he felt abandoned, he felt betrayed and used and humiliated and hated that he couldn't remember if he had slept with the girl of his dreams the night before.

Still, he pushed his tousled hair out of his face and stared at a pair of simple knickers on the ground beside him, at least he couldn't hear anybody out in the church he thought as he shoved the underwear into his pocket, slipped his shirt on and buttoned his trousers.

When he cringed at the creaking door and crept out into the church Remus was hugely relieved to find that it was as empty as he'd thought before realising it was _the church,_ the one Elena and Sirius were to be married in. he closed his eyes as if he had just been struck and tried to imagine it all being gone when he opened them again but all he noticed then was a waft of Sirius's scent clinging to the edge of the material around him, to the frankincense saturated curtains of the confession box and even to the carpet, he had arrived. Moving toward the alter he noticed a door ajar to the side and squinting against the bright sun light leaking in through the large windows Remus walked quietly toward it, passing through it into a tasteful back hall. Of course Elena and Sirius wouldn't get married just anywhere, it would have to be the sort of church that had all sorts of extra rooms for people having their exceedingly posh church related functions, like private dressing rooms behind a stage. How appropriate, he thought moving toward another door which was propped open, he peaked through and felt concern rise as he saw Elena, too pale and too still on a couch looking positively convincing as some other wordly princess out of a story book. Like sleeping beauty, he frowned as he entered his eyes marvelling at the way the skirt of her wedding dress bloomed up like gossamer around her and the side of her face was delicately shaded by a small hat embroidered with sweet little roses which blushed a barest pink like her pale lips;

"Elena? Are you ok?" he scratched, his already whispery voice not becoming any less hoarse with the helpful addition of alcohol and a creaky nights sleep.

"She's fainted." explained a young muggle Remus didn't recognise, the man seemed to be dressed for the ceremony in slacks and a pair of notoriously shiny shoes, a heavy wool coat and scarf that looked more suited to Winter rested over the side of one of the rooms chairs, he was holding a glass of water which the werewolf assumed he had poured for Elena. He smiled broadly at Remus and he guessed the man was just a few years older than him;

"I'm Remus." the wizard eventually said, clearing the small space between them and shaking the mans hand; "Do you think we should put her into the recovery position or something?" he asked utilising what knowledge he had of practical non-magical first aid as he glanced over at the swooning Elena whose face creased slightly as if she were troubled before settling back into neutrality.

"No don't worry Remus I sat her that way as I know it best for a woman of her build, I'm studying medicine you see." he glanced down at his glass of water before returning his brown eyes to meet Remus's amber ones. "I actually want to add a sort of herbal tonic to this water, would you mind taking Elena's pulse while I mix it?"

"Sure." Remus agreed shyly classing the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach as a consequence of too much muggle whiskey he moved over to Elena and pulled her fine wrist away from her body in to his hands, trying to find the neat beat of her pulse; "Do you know where Sirius is?" the lycan asked conversationally as the doctor whose name he regrettably didn't catch clinked around with the glass behind him. Remus brow furrowed as he knelt before the blonde woman as he caught a whiff of something chemical in the air, like some sort of muggle sedative that Lily had often been forced to use on him after the moon. It sifted lightly through the air around him and as he turned his nose up ward into the air and began to count out the woman's pulse he noted something else clinging to the room. Fear.

Remus didn't even have time to call out before the bottle of champagne was shattered over the side of his head in a brief shower of glass and golden liquid. The weight of his head slumped against Elena's lap as his blood trickled over the lily skin of her hand and began to stain her skirt. Had either of them been conscious they would have felt chilled to see the elated slightly nervous smile and wide eyes of their assailant, Elena's worst nightmare and first lover, Mark A. Keats.


	31. True to Form

**True to Form**

After sending the wedding guests ahead to the reception in the Y club Anne followed Sirius into the back rooms of the church and tried to find either him or Elena. Moving through the thread of only five rooms Anne began to feel nerves overtake her. She wouldn't know how to react should she bump into Remus, did he know what she was? Had he seen her bite? In the last dressing room Anne found Sirius braced against a window sill scowling out over the churches small lawn and the houses adjacent. The window was jammed open with a cracked mirror and Anne gulped as she inhaled the scent carried on the light summer breeze blowing in. Of course the ever glorious and distracting scent of whatever expensive cologne Sirius doused himself in wafted temptingly toward her but that wasn't what caused her hands to grow clammy. The adaptations which had overtaken her since the wolf carried a much more disconcertingly scent on the air, a scent that she innately recognised as fear. Her stomach roiled as she tried no to let herself grow distracted by the tremulous imposing beauty of the thrice scorned Sirius Black. The innateness of her ever evolving new instincts didn't help; as her body accepted the wolfs infection she expected to get more used to it, she would be a predator for the rest of her life should she survive the transformation yet she still found each growing sense jarring. Smelling fear, losing site of consequences like an animal, running on impulse. Yet she had to trust the human in her to hold true, a key example being the lack of latching onto Sirius as he was dangled before her like a beautifully wrapped chocolate of some sort.

"Can you smell the fear?" she asked Sirius and he didn't react, she glanced about the room, sparing a moments thought for a coat and scarf thrown over a chair; "and there is something chemical," she eyed a glass; "almost like a hospital."

"Can you smell betrayal?" he broke his silence and Anne crossed the room to lean against the wall beside the window, staring at his perfectly structured face in profile, trying to see the man living within the distracting body, trying to ground herself on the thought that beauty, even his, despite its strength was fickle. She had Elena's for a while and it had meant nothing, it was just a body, it could break and buckle just as hers soon would. He looked haggard she realised, so strange as it had only been moments since the guests had cleared out but it was long enough for him to know for sure that wherever Elena was, she was no longer in the church.

"Do you know who those things belong to?" she asked, gesturing mildly toward the chair and he didn't turn but asked;

"You mean the coat?" and she nodded;

"Yeah." she permitted verbally noting that his narrowed eyes didn't appear to be connected with his surroundings as if he looked out on a different seen to the one she saw. She tore her sharp pale blue eyes away from his light grey ones and watched his hands close into telltale fists.

"No Anne, I don't know which man left a coat in my missing bride-to-be's dressing room, I assume he was one of the men she so enjoyed fucking while I for some reason agreed to trust her." and he eventually pushed himself away from the window and made to storm out of the room.

"You don't really think that she wilfully left do you?" Anne half jogged after him with light bouncing steps but he once again failed to react. Anne stopped after reaching the hallway door and watched him plod down the corridor gaping at his back for a moment before finding her temper again;

"don't you dare treat me as if this is some how my fault Sirius!" she called as she caught up to him once more and kept pace with him toward the exit; "you can't treat people like this, especially not me. Don't even think about taking this out on me, after all I've done!" and he rounded on her;

"What have you done? Forced me and your bitch of a sister together, martyred yourself for the sake of some dutiful marriage that isn't even going to happen? Failed to just die like every other muggle woman ever attacked by a werewolf. Greyback had you, you shouldn't even be here to give me this crap. Fuck off back in to the woods and leave me alone." he growled and her face hardened into a resolute, cold scowl as she stared up at the stupidly tall man and tried to bare to appeal to him despite him having essentially wished her dead;

"If that's how you see it then fine but something's not right and I know you know there is more to this but if you want to be stubborn and childish then fine, you don't have to answer to me Black, just your conscience. Don't bother coming and crying to me when you realise she loves you far too much to do this to you because I wash my hands of you both." and the furious werewolf turned up her nose and pushed past the sneering wizard through the exit and out into the church grounds;

"Go ahead Chalk, it's not as if you ever caused anything but trouble." he called after her but she didn't turn back, she hadn't time, he wasn't going to admit that Elena hadn't left by choice and that left only her to figure out what happened, she just couldn't figure out why her gut was screaming at her that Sirius held something vital, what could he possibly know about Elena that she didn't?

Shortly after stepping outside Anne felt her stomach give a hardy twist and stumbled over to a nearby bush and promptly vomited into a hedge, she needed more painkillers and a pair of sunglasses. She spat into the bush and turned away from her own sick while rubbing her face. Could it have been so recently that she had been casually nurturing a crush on Sirius Black, if not slightly melodramatically. She thought back on her kiss with him, the first one, angry and heartbreaking, the following which she had lost count of during her time as Elena which had been so deliciously forbidden and stolen and then her treacherous mind wandered to the moment where the entire illusion had been shattered and the taste of the vomit in her mouth felt more at home as she thought of the dreadful moment her stomach had failed to flip and her heart failed to sore.

Yes her time with Sirius had made her completely ridiculous especially when she noted that a large part of herself wandered back to that church where she had stood with him.

"Why do I still want you?" she asked him and without warning a tear slipped down her cheek and then another and another. Her hip ached, her head hurt, her heart was breaking apart and becoming unrecognisable in her hands and she knew she needed some salvation. Something to make it end, she bit her lip as she thought of the perfect distraction, the person that carried her further away then any measure of licker could. Remus Lupin, he was a man with whom she could truly destroy herself and she shook her head as she thought of how he simply didn't seem the sort. He seemed so sensible and dull really but she knew better, he was a creature of utmost passion, she blushed, perhaps if she could find him he could carry her away even for a short while and then she could be fresh for the hunt for her sister.

"I'm like a junkie out for a fix." she muttered pathetically setting a trudging pace once more feeling the sun beat down on the back of her head as she squinted at the hot tarmac path. She knew it was true, that if he had been close she would have done anything for a hit off of her fellow werewolf but then again perhaps not. She spat on the ground again. For if she was to do with him what she so craved to do with him a second time, or so she assumed, then she would have to face him first and that was one more thing she was absolutely too petrified to do.

"Pathetic." she grumbled, glancing at a street sign centred at an intersection in an attempt to get her bearings and return home but after quickly mapping out the fastest route she realised she had no home to go to and felt both heavier and lighter as a result of it. Chewing on her lip for a moment Anne eventually settled on delaying her decision by buying some tooth paste and a five pack of knickers. Turning into a chemist she grabbed an eclectic pair of duck printed briefs and a travel dental kit before allowing them to clatter onto the plastic counter. Behind the art deco surface a pimpled young man wearing a name tag which for some reason expressed his favourite over the counter medication to be "calpol" while also informing her that his name was Stan gave her a seedy once over which she outwardly ignored decisively. She ended up meeting the boys eyes as she took her change, receiving a flirtatious brush over her hand for her troubles. She had intended to ask if she could use the bathroom but realising all her polite, smiling Elena impersonating abilities had eventually been bleached away by her naturally cranky humour Anne instead chose to grab her items from the counter before throwing down another two pound and grabbing some sunglasses from the rack.

The coin still rattled on the counter as the mousy haired girl slammed the shop door behind her and immediately turned as if to enter back into the shop before tearing herself away again. Her temper suddenly ridiculously hot, bubbling over and causing her to childishly jump up and down outside the shop. She stilled herself for a moment, trying to find some sense before she abruptly snarled, jamming the sunglasses onto her face, taking a moment to belatedly note that they were decorated with ladybirds she picked up a rock and weighed it in her hand. She stared at the rock, she stared at the window, she thought of Stan's barely discernable wink and she lost it, immediately hocking the weighty mossy stone at the window of the pharmacy. The sound of glass shattering split the air, throwing a cool bucket of water over the woman's temper a moment to late. The clatter as the rock fell back to the ground having left a large circle of fractured glass at the point of impact highlighted the drop of her stomach into her shoes. Mouth agape and blushing Anne stared at the wreckage for a moment before she eventually released a sound halfway between a laugh and a whine of protest and took off down the street in the sort of flat out sprint someone who could tast vomit and beer in their mouth was not on average wont to do. The sound of the shop attendant eventually joining the sound of her kitten heels clattering against the ground as he called threats after her. Her grand blue dress billowed behind her as she eventually made it out of ear shot of the pharmacy though she wouldn't put it past the boy to call the police, in reality he would be right to do so, and what would she say?

"Hey, cut me some slack! I'm still trying to get my supernatural hormone driven temper under control and after all, he did give me a gross look." gasping for breath Anne eventually cracked out her neck and began to walk again, trying to find some sense in the anarchy surrounding her and consuming her.

She had so hoped that all the lose ends would be tied up before her first transformation, should she die, but it didn't seem to be within her control. The wedding could have brought the whole process so far, Elena could have made Sirius happy and he could have offered her some protection, safety from her own mistakes. Anne could have focused on her exams then, she could have had one last success. At least the whole not wanting to die a virgin thing was taken care of though then again she would like to have one memorable legitimate sexual experience before she died, minimally one she didn't black out during. What good was there left for her to do since Elena was missing? And Remus? She sighed with a small amount of relief as she managed to think of one of her would-be paramours without soaking through her knickers before she was dragged back to reality by her nagging competitive tendency. she simply couldn't die before completing her exams, in fact she would have to do perfectly in them. It was integral, yet she was so behind on all of her work due to the ridiculous interference of _people_ that there was no way she would be able pull together a leading grade in the stupidly prestigious college. She frowned, at least she could try and do something about that unlike the impossible task of trying to build bridges with people who had dropped off the planet. her stomach twisted with concern, her gut telling her something was terribly wrong, the stench of fear still whispered over her clothes. Then was it not more likely that the pair were simply absent of their own will? Would it be so far fetched to dismiss her concerns as paranoia? She yanked momentarily at her growing mop of mousy hair which had grown into an awkward tousle of tangled shoulder brushing frizz. Maybe they would both turn up before the weekend, who's to say?


	32. Hunted

Hunted

Sirius was furious, Anne was being impossible and he knew she was avoiding him (and everyone for that matter) on purpose. Over the last week and a half she had developed a system and it seemed to be working for her, a system where she would be there one moment and disappear without a trace in the next. It was exhausting, she was exhausting and Sirius didn't even know why he was searching for her. They had nothing left to say to each other, if he had any sense at all he would pack in all this muggle business and go apply for auror training at the ministry or something. Be sensible, get back to reality, back to Black. But Sirius wasn't sensible and his usual council on the matter of all things sensible had been MIA since his rendezvous with Anne Chalk in a confession box. Lupin was a grown man, he'd have to turn up somewhere before the full moon, Sirius just wished he would be quick about it. Not that the animagus had much time to ponder Remus's fate due to his rather tragic and obsessive fixation with the whereabouts of his runaway bride who had yet to reappear since the ceremony. Initially his fruitless and furious attempts to hunt her down to demand an explanation had consumed him but unexpectedly his main motivation in searching became his simple longing, since he had met her Sirius hadn't realised how much potential he had to miss Elena. Her golden hair, her articulate manner of speaking, the way she lifted her shoulder when she smiled, her too loud laugh… but of course he couldn't be after Anne just to get some Elena update, some news of some sighting of the mud blood succubus had nothing to do with it. It was about something he couldn't quite place but not Elena, his reasons for pursuing Anne were completely separate, or so he told himself. Not that it mattered because considering Anne was a muggle she was doing a fairly fucking convincing disappearing act.

Sirius sat unshaven in the same too small black t-shirt he had been wearing for the last three days along with his patent black leather jacket and a scruffy pair of axel grease stained jeans. He was too warm in the stuffy lecture hall but too distracted to think to remove his coat as the lecturers words blurred into an indistinct mumble and he glared at Anne's hand moving over her page taking her usual meticulous and boxy notes at a furious pace. Her left hand rested on the back of her neck as if to shield it from his scathing gaze and her frizz of clean mousy brown hair had grown long enough to be tied in a small tight bun. She wore a yellow blouse and obviously out of fashion high-waisted grey slacks which she must have been aware did nothing for her boyish figure. What puzzled him most about her appearance was a detail that would have seen incidental on any other woman, her nails were painted blood red, sleek and glamorous and insensible, he huffed, rearranging himself in his chair. She wouldn't get away this time, she had successfully avoided his every pursuit thus far but today he knew he would catch her, he was sure of it. He had caught sight of her bike locked to a street lamp on his way into the lecture and placed a simple freezing charm on the front wheel. He had her and he had convinced himself that once he started talking to her he would be able to figure out what it was he had to say to her.

His eyes flickered up toward the clock for the umpteenth time and he almost groaned aloud, half an hour, how could they be less than half way through the damn lecture? A paper aeroplane struck him on the back of the head on its journey careening through the teardrop lecture hall and he rolled his eyes, glancing behind him, several of the lads sat a few rows behind him nodded with about as much subtlety as a gaggle of geese. He shook his head as he unfolded the note:

_Y tonight Black?_ he huffed, maybe getting drunk on a Wednesday would be slightly less depressing if he did it with people even if it was in the Godforsaken abominably snooty Y club. He shrugged, not bothering to turn around, knowing they were watching him and went back to his staring game with Anne's stiff, buffed hand with its ominous red nails that he was disturbed to realise had him a little hot under the collar, then again it had been a while. In fact it had been a really long while even by a normal persons standards but Sirius was a special case, he _really _liked sex. For fuck sake he loved sex, good sex was practically is life's work, since he had turned thirteen he had oozed sex from every pore and there he was, so deprived fucking Anne Chalk's manicure was enough to set him off. It hadn't been his fault at first, it had been Anne's, when she had been in her sisters smoking hot body and somehow successfully refused him for a ball busting fortnight and then when Elena was back it somehow felt like sex wasn't even on the cards and love struck idiot that he was he hadn't even questioned it. His excuse for not getting laid after the wedding was rather flimsy, just words spoken by a liar that he couldn't get out of his head, Elena's words spoken in a whisper after the full moon when they lay in bed; words of love and trust. Trust that had kept him from meandering since day one, faith that had been weighing his cock down like some sort of emotional black mail fuelled chastity belt ever since he had asked Elena to marry him. Anger at Elena rumbled in his stomach and he wondered if that was why he was after Anne, wouldn't fucking the dowdy sister be just about the perfect revenge? It would be like claiming back a part of himself, the part that he had given to Elena like a fool. But Sirius remembered the last time he had tried to use Anne that way all too clearly, how she had looked at him after nought but a single stolen kiss. His eyes remained fixed on her ruby nails, she deserved kindness at least.

What felt like years later the lecture abruptly ended and a litany of rustling was roused around the room as books and noted were crammed in bags. Anne was packed up and on her way out of the lecture impossibly quickly, so quickly in fact that she was on her feet before Sirius who had nothing to pack up at all. He fixedly followed her out of the room, waving off the calls of some of the men gathering to punch arms in the lecture hall as he watched her prompt foot out the door. Managing to match her pace half way up the hall he cleared his throat. It suddenly seemed strange, chasing her down like this, she looked worn.

"Annie I-" she turned to him after an abrupt stop and he exhaled, stalling on his foot. He immediately felt relieved, not quite able to believe his luck; "You'll talk to me?" he asked, surprised how it had finally become out of the question for him to greet her conventionally with a kiss on the back of her hand. Her hair pulled sharply back from her face disrupted any soft shadow that might have fallen, further removing the issue of prettiness about her features, leaving only the odd androgynous angle of her jaw followed by her too small mouth and dull oblong eyes to render him silent for reasons unknown. Perhaps it was the fact that even though her powder blue eyes had only met his with any discernable reactivity for a moment they had pierced into him like a blade, knowing and unforgiving.

"Conscience finally caught up with you Black?" she eventually asked quietly and he hated how relieved he was to hear her voice but not nearly as much as he hated the cloud that seemed to be raining over him as she attempted to escape him again. He quickly matched his pace to hers and tried again;

"I-" but she unpredictably slipped into a room to their right, slamming it immediately behind her. Rolling his eyes he pulled the door open but felt his gut twist with frustration as he found the meeting room impossibly empty. She had to be inside, he thought as he took a step further into the room and crouched slightly to check under the table feeling ridiculous.

Anne stepped out from behind the door and stared forlornly at Sirius's perfect arse as he bent to search for her under the table. She tilted her head slightly and bit her lip before hastily shaking her head and exiting the room. She was sick with worry for her sister and exhausted from being hunted by Sirius but she had kept herself sufficiently busy in an attempt to avoid confronting either issue. She studied, she trained, she tutored and she worked. As long as she didn't let the cloying in her chest or the burn of her bite consume her thoughts for too long she was fine, it was only at night that she truly suffered. Teeth, fear, death, sex and loneliness plagued her dreams, it was at night that she couldn't escape her sickness.

When Anne stepped outside she unlocked her bike and kicked off only to have to steady herself with her feet on the ground as the front wheel refused to turn. Swinging her leg off of her bike Anne was about to flip it and balance it on it's handlebar and saddle so she could work on the wheel before she noticed Sirius's gleaming black pride and joy dominating the curb. Sighing she lifted the bike up onto her shoulder and carried it around the corner of the castle to work on it there, safe from his sight. Anne wasn't sure why he was so fixated on talking to her but she had gathered that it wasn't to apologise and after figuring out that much she had decided there wasn't anything else that she wanted to hear. She had found he was surprisingly easy to avoid especially since, as she had proven on the night before his failed wedding that even while completely wasted drunk she had a knack for evasion tactics. There were some things that even the great Anne Chalk couldn't avoid however and those things were rumours, thousands of which had inevitably spawned in the wake of the prestigious Elena Chalks failed wedding. The central rumour which had thus evolved was of Sirius and Anne's involvement with one another, one that would have seemed completely preposterous if it weren't for Sirius's insistence on stalking her every move.


	33. despicable

Anne eventually gave up on her bike, having heard Sirius thunder off on his motorcycle almost half an hour before. She emerged from the nook she had lodged herself in after chaining her bike to a drain pipe. Positive that Sirius had sabotaged her bike some how Anne sourly began the two mile long walk into work which typically broke into a jog as her restless limbs rebelled against the increasing pace distracting her from her misgiving thoughts which ranged from Sirius's arse to the impending moon, both equally likely to be the death of her. Her breathing controlled, her skin growing damp, she arrived at work pissed off and too hot due to the summer evenings low lying sun. Her manager awaited giving her a questioning once over with his brown eyes which she had once thought moderately kindly, the truth was when he had asked "can you wait tables?" in her initial interview just a month earlier he had something more unsavoury in mind then Anne had anticipated. After training her in as a waitress and a barmaid with four other women to Anne's surprise, Mr. Thorn had organised her first shift within the week of Elena's disappearance. When she had arrived Anne was directed with two of her new co-workers, two women, one Swedish and curvaceous with long Black hair, the other tall like Anne but with red hair from France into the staff room. The two girls, Tatiana and Delphine did not speak English well but both spoke German, frequently, immediately isolating Anne and making it difficult to express her distaste as Thorn described their duties for the evening and presented them with their uniforms. Anne wasn't sure which was more demeaning, being unemployed and forced to return to her parents for financial support or having to squeeze into the impossibly small and revealing "waitressing" uniform. She resolved to force the zip up on the white leather dress with a sigh, raising herself up precariously on red high heels to match the newly standard Y lipstick which stained her mouth like blood. The dynamic duo had eventually emerged from their dressing rooms looking dazzling in similar outfits to her but with their hair tucked into white sailor caps which they eventually shaped Anne's unattractive hair into. They muttered disapprovingly in German as they then fixed her makeup and handed her a roll of tissue; "For the titty" Delphine had explained helpfully making Anne force a smile out of a grimace before politely refusing the offer to stuff her bra. She had since gotten used to the stupid outfit and the leering of bar patrons, pleased to discover that the layer of make-up that made her face feel wet and warm had rendered her almost unrecognisable as was proven when she had met her father in the club. She was so relieved when he had simply grunted his order and waved her off she had almost cracked a smile at one of Delphine's lewd jokes.

Anne had eventually adjusted to the degrading job and was prompt in zipping herself into the skin tight uniform only a week after beginning, greeting the girls with a;

"Gesundheit ladies." making them giggle lightly, damn any man who claimed that Anne was not quick to adapt;

"You English are 'opeless with languages Anna, you know this?" Tatiana raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at Anne as the English woman began to draw hers on hurriedly with a sigh;

"and you Swedish are 'opeless with 'ayches Tiana." Anne responded as she attempted to apply a layer of glue to a pair of fake eyelashes. Eventually the girls took pity on her and promptly morphed her into a respectable level of harlot down to the last beauty spot. The three women were promptly called to begin their shift and Anne, having drawn the short straw, was sent into the main bar, where the younger men bustled about blowing smoke all over each other and sloshing beer while bragging loudly. She stepped into the room which was roaring with the boisterous under twenty fives, each of them convinced they looked shockingly dapper in their corduroy suits which they had clumsily clambered into after their respective athletic activities. Their sporty evening fillers left the young gentlemen smelling like the epitome of class, sweat in other words. The occasional streak of mud remained flaking on several of the boys flushed faces, their cheeks wet due to a poorly measured, liberal dousing of aftershave. One man sat on the end of the bar singing some private school ballad merrily and making Anne fight with all her might not to roll her eyes as he drank something potent directly from a trophy cup as if he and his team had won the world though in reality there was a new victory cup being drunk from every damn day of the week.

"Oh Tina you always seem so grumpy." cried one of the regulars, captain of the rowing team from Eton having spotted her grimace at the amount of spirits spilling from the trophy to the floor which she would inevitably have to clean up. The absolutely pissed teenager scooped her into his side with a sweaty palm and grinned down at her, in work they called her Tina, because apparently Anne was too plain. She smiled broadly and slipped from his hold;

"Drink Mr. Banbridge?" she asked, pulling some empty glasses from the table and mopping up what she could of the sloshed lager from the dark varnished wood table with her red rag.

"I'll have another," he tapped his empty pint of Guinness and she nodded taking the glass from his hand;

"Anything for you love?" A small man, cocksman for Eton if she wasn't mistaken leant over the table to ask her, narrowly avoiding knocking over his own pint in his eagerness to show up Banbridge in the bid for her attention;

"I'm working Mr. Sinclair, sorry." she turned carefully on her skyscraper heels and headed toward the bar to switch orders when she suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the room, feeling all colour drain from her face. Not that anyone would be able to tell due to the gratuitous amount of make-up covering any natural occurrence of her skin. Exclaiming a quiet and rather pathetic; "Bollocks." Anne stared at Sirius Black settled into a seat surrounded by fawning cronies in their stupid khaki trousers. Sirius didn't seem to be on trend with the whole trouser thing as he slouched in a wooden chair in his black leather motor cycle pants and jacket over that torturously tight cotton t-shirt. He waved to the tall Hispanic man at the bar, Axel, and gestured for a double of the drink he had finished , his order followed by three more from his table. Sirius ran his hand through his hair with heartbreaking nonchalance before facing the fonies with a haughty look that made Anne's stomach burn. She noticed him start to turn toward her as if he felt the heat of her gaze on him and gasped as she practically threw herself behind a crowd of the spoilt little princes that smothered the shop. She coughed to cover a whimper that escaped her as she felt her tender hip crack and tighten painfully from the evasive movement. Her heels aggravated the injury increasingly with each night of work only making her more determined to grit through it but she still made a mental note not to leap like she had been cast as a dowdy female alternative in a British remake of Rambo if she could avoid it. Tray laden with glasses still in hand, just about, Anne made her way to the bar, avoiding a direct line of sight with the gorgeous loathsome man at the other end of the pub.

"Axel can I get a Guinness please? plenty of head." she asked the barman who shrugged off her vindictive demand to pour a bad pint and filled the glass three-quarters of the way before giving it a moment to settle;

"Thee men at thee end of thee pob ordered a double whiskey in ice and three cider, ok?" he asked in his lightly accented English but Anne pressed her lips together and shook her head.

"I can't, I know him." but Axel had already placed the drink on her tray and was finishing pouring the pint;

"Suck it up _Tina_." he advised before moving down the counter to take an order, mopping as he went, a thin blonde man to her left grunted out an

"Oi," with a cigarette balanced between his lips and without even turning Anne pulled her zippo lighter from its place hooked at her hip and lit it with a flick of her wrist

"Enjoy." she smiled before reattaching the light to her belt, it was an odd little detail in her job but of course their were plenty of those. Lighting cigarettes, putting trophies through the dish washer, suffering fools…

"Mr. Banbridge." she smiled, passing him his pint and trying to ignore his awkward scraggily facial hair as he took the pint from her and placed it behind him before planting a wet kiss on her hand;

"Captain Banbridge." he corrected in what she assumed he thought was a seductive tone and she felt the smile drop from her face as her hand balled into a fist. She dutifully ignored the urge to punch him in the face as he raised an eyebrow at her; "Something wrong Tina baby?" he asked taking a step forward; "I could show you what it's like to be treated like a lady you know, I could show you a really good time." his voice lowered as his eyes raked over her lanky body packed into the leather sleeve, making her stomach turn as he eventually deigned to return her hand. She didn't know when she would get used to being treated this way but she was in no position to quit work so she just laughed nasally. Finding a way to disentangle herself from the situation promptly and without committing first degree murder Anne excused herself with an

"Aye aye captain." trying desperately to hark back to the short time she had spent acting as Elena, attempting to pull together some façade of bubbliness that she simply wouldn't have bothered to muster under any regular circumstances. Taking two more empty bottles from the table she simply walked away, no speech, no punching, just measured breathing and a ruby smile spread around gritted teeth. Anne crossed the room quickly with her eyes cast down as she approached Sirius, hoping desperately that he wouldn't recognise her, wondering if she would be upset if he didn't, her own father hadn't recognised her after all.

Anne faced the boy sitting directly opposite Sirius once she had reached their table and began to unload her tray, hoping the other boys from lit wouldn't see through the fakery, though of course they would not. She was a prop to them.

"Thanks love." Sirius muttered hotly letting his hand brush against her back as he words curled around her in a wisp of smoke;

"Will that be all… Mr. Black?" She asked, knowing it was expected that she know the name of all the men in the bar if possible, he stubbed out his cigarette and pulled out another;

"Can I get a light?" he asked, his voice gravelly and Anne didn't turn as she pulled her lighter from her hip once again and scratched the flint to spark it, once, twice, before it lit in her barely shaking hand;

"Sorry," he mumbled, as he accepted the light, the edge of his stubble pressing against her fingers as he inhaled; "Am I making you nervous?" and Anne laughed in robotically in response preparing to remove her hand and herself but his hand was on her wrist;

"Well well Annie, say it ain't so." he rumbled as he surveyed her nails and she eventually deigned to look at him through batting false lashes framing her tell tale signature blue eyes. Fuck.

"You keep this to yourself, you hear me Black?!" she whispered to him sharply and a mischievous girn broke across the mans face, he loved leverage when he got it, he just hoped to God she didn't start to beat him up again, being punched by the English student was no joke.

"You'll have to do something for me then." his voice full of promise filled Anne with equal parts dread and excitements, her stubborn anger went without saying.

"I get off at twelve Black and then you can have your precious conversation." she sneered, tugging her hand free of his grasp as he lent in close her, running a hand across her shoulders;

"You know you look hot to night Annie" Her breathe hitched as she realised both the extent to which Sirius was already drunk and the extent to which the thought of him on the edge aroused her. Unable to resist she lent into him to respond, the scent of the ridiculous but incredibly sexy perfume he wore making her stomach flutter;

"You're despicable." she hissed into his ear and he laughed as if it had been a joke. Loosing a low whistle as she clacked back to the bar on her precarious heels to complete what would surely be the longest nights work of her life. He had her.


	34. Tempo

**Tempo**

"You don't think he is going to let us die down here do you?" Elena asked Remus after they had caught their breath, a silent acknowledgement of the pointlessness of more shouting passed between them and the confidence that seemed to always insulate Elena's tone sent her question echoing into the silence, unwavering.

"No, he is too much of a coward for that." Remus responded in his hoarse whisper and Elena scoffed;

"He may be too much of a coward to off us properly but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have it in him to leave us down here to rot." They sat on a set of velvet lined dining chairs tied back to back, hands fixed behind them, staring at a respective expanse of immaculately wall papered cellar wall. They had been packed below a house along with collectable wines and foreign cheese to await their fate in thick silence broken only by their own breath and words. They had given up on screaming, it was as Mark Keats had said when Elena was still bleary from Rohypnol and Remus from concussion, no one was going to hear them, it was a two way silence.

Keats had looked terrified when they had woken up and Remus having been in similar situations before during the war was positive his fellow marauders would come. His guerilla warfare knowledge also allowed him to recognise an amateur when he saw one, Keats had no clue what he was doing, he had planned this as beast he could but he just didn't know how to. Elena was right though, amateur and immature didn't mean he wouldn't leave them down there till they died, abductors often became too stressed and tried to wait for the problem of prisoners to solve itself. Keats actions so far had shown an unwillingness to kill however, he had taken Remus, something that obviously hadn't been part of the plan but had been his gut response to dealing with a witness. The guy was probably a bride-napper and he had targeted Elena, Remus would bet he got his kicks form the irony of the whole thing. From the way they were tied Remus could just about feel the side of Elena's hand against his, it didn't tremble. She didn't seem to be in shock, she seemed resigned, this fact left him both sad for and a little bit impressed by the petite blonde.

"I'm sorry." Remus mumbled and Elena lent against the warmth of his back as she stared at the wall, still in her wedding dress she squirmed in her seat. The lingerie was beautiful but it was not designed to be worn for so long;

"Me too." she blurted in between a little frustrated grunt which signified the end of her struggles to find a more comfortable position. She was sorry, for so much.

"You haven't done anything to me." he mumbled and she sighed;

"I'm sure if you take a moment you will be able to find some heart ache I have caused you, I'm good at it," he snickered;

"Don't flatter yourself Chalk." He admonished and she smiled against the pull of her wounded cheek, finding him easy company in the eye of the storm.

"I manipulated you," she stated, slumping further into the chair despite the burning in her shoulders, her body still lax from the drugs. Remus stared at the wall because that was really all their was to do, and then after a moment he broke the silence again;

"I've kept worse secrets." but the confession seeming as self indulgent as hers and it was true he had not said it to make her feel better but rather to remind himself that he had no right to complain. If he had a single unselfish bone in his body he would of destroyed himself long ago, long before he was in a position to hurt people.

"A big bad secret aside from being a wizard? After that not much could surprise me." he still found it jarring at first when he met a muggle who knew.

"I was going to keep our indiscretion a secret which would have been an unfathomable betrayal considering everything Sirius has done for me." and then he felt Elena's small shoulder shrug against his back.

"Right well I'm not going to sit here trying to out sin you all day. Do you know any games?" she asked her voice lightening;

"Not as many as you I'm sure." he smirked wryly as she scoffed again;

"You bitch." she hissed, following the cutting statement with a small snort of laughter; "Sorry," she apologised again, this time unnecessarily, for a laugh that was apparently not posh enough; "I've been spending too much time around Anne."

"You caught laughter from Anne? Quite a feat." and they chuckled again, the laughter like a small naïve escape died quickly;

"Are you always this vindictive?" she asked and he cleared his throat;

"Only when locked in a cellar tied to a chair with nothing but muggle rope which might as well be lined with silver for all the good not having my wand will do me." denial no longer seemed to be working.

"It must be pretty annoying to know that not but mere rope contains you when you are an all powerful magical being." she responded and she hoped he would inadvertently answer some of her questions about wizardry, not only because Sirius hadn't been to willing, old habits she supposed but also because she was desperate for any sort of distraction his answer might lend.

"Quite." he muttered, no such luck.

"Sirius told me about the spell you cast that made me and Anne switch bodies." She tried, her tone giving nothing away.

"I promise you it was completely by accident." Remus felt his neck heat up and was glad no one was looking at him lest they see the white of his scars stand out in stark contrast to his flushed skin;

"Yes well, thanks anyway." she rushed out smiling as she said thanks, realising it was thoroughly worked into her vernacular after suffering with it so much as Anne.

"What?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in confusion;

"Well to be honest I think it needed to happen for a few reasons, for Anne's sake and mine. We were both able to see that living each others lives is not easy, that being engaged to Sirius Black is no picnic… we needed it." she hoped they might move into a flow of conversation that might take her far away.

"You must have been scared though." Remus added and Elena shook her head;

"Not as scared as I am now." she whispered and that was it, tears began to slip along her cheeks and she would have stomped her foot at her own lack of will, she who had once been such a good actress, but her feet were bound to the chair so she just let the tears fall in silence so that Remus was none the wiser as he asked;

"What do you think they are doing?" and she took a quiet breath before responding in a measured tone;

"I'd bet money that Sirius thinks I've left him at the alter and that he is pouting like a child over it." and her mood broke and suddenly a tantrum seemed like an easy door to distraction.

"What makes you say that?" he asked and Elena rolled her eyes, her tears drying forgotten on her cheeks as she spoke with disdain;

"Because it always has to be my fault, I mysteriously change places with my sister and because I didn't tell him he's the victim, he can't yell at me and it's me fault for being stormed in on when I'm in my underwear, I sleep around and it's totally unforgivable even though he has a notorious reputation. I'm not saying it's not my fault I'm just saying he is partly to blame. I mean admittedly I know shouldn't have gotten it off with you Remus but then why didn't Sirius tell anyone we were engaged? Admittedly it wasn't mature of me to retaliate by fooling around with you because I mean you not recognising me or even knowing my name may or may not have been part of my motivation for doing it but the point is he could have prevented-" she was cut off by a whispered statement Remus hadn't really meant her to hear, a quiet;

"I knew it." which made Elena smile but she pressed him as if she weren't looking for a fight;

"Excuse me?" she asked as Remus bit his tongue;

"Nothing." he grunted and wished an argument didn't feel so inevitable.

"No, that was something." she urged demandingly and he blew out a gust of air;

"Can we just leave it?" he asked and Elena laughed a slightly too loud laugh;

"Mr. Lupin I think you may have forgotten who you're talking to." he gave up, if she could out-stubborn Sirius Black he needn't even try;

"I just, I knew it was never about, well… _me_ with you." he groused and Elena whistled low like Sirius did when he was checking someone out except she followed it up with an incredulous;

"Wow." Remus wished he had thought of anything else to say; "I really am just a trophy to you people…" she trailed off and the werewolf groaned;

"I-" he tried.

"Whatever you are about to say it better not be about your ego." she snapped;

"Me?" he asked; "My ego? Elena Chalk wants to dictate to me about ego?"

"What? Are you saying I'm arrogant?"

"Yes." he stated cleanly and she huffed; "Vain at the very least." he added, his temper beginning to surface but he sent it bubbling back down with a cautious breath;

"Seriously? Have you seen the state of my face?" she asked challengingly;

"Have you seen mine?!" he countered and then he remembered her BeautyBeast curse;

"Oh please Remus you know you're dashing as hell, not even Sirius had me on my knees that fast. It's not like my skin, I look like a monster." Remus had to release a bitter laugh at her choice of words while at the same time feeling a little embarrassed with his own past behaviour. If only she knew that his scars and his confidence when it came to sex were all part of being a true monster. Whenever he let go even the slightest amount he always felt compelled to become more controlling of others, so that meant with sex, when he was drunk and when he was craving chocolate. Suddenly he was struck with the thought of the dire consequences of being left in the cellar for too long, what would happen if they remained there untill the moon. He shivered involuntarily as his mind flooded with images of Elena mangled in a corner as he awoke covered in their blood. He would never know how horrible it had been for her, he would know only guilt and a cell in Azkaban. He had to have faith in his friends.

"You're not a monster." he wished he could just look at her;

"No, a Beast." she corrected and he grimaced. Sirius had told her about the hex, at least he had told her something. There was silence as he tried to think of something to say and she became lost in the thoughts she most wanted to escape, thoughts of a very dark period in her mid-teens, thoughts of terrifying experiences from her childhood. Suddenly the sensation of being tied up was too much and she was right back there. The worst part was, she actually was, she tried to take deep breaths to calm down but it wasn't working. She pulled at the ropes but the unrelenting burn was so familiar and yet fresh that it made her panic further;

"I didn't mean to upset you Elena." Remus eventually broke the silence which was filled only with Elena's measured breaths and fidgeting but then he could almost feel the change like the breaking of a wave as her squirming stilled. Then she began to breath deeper and faster and louder and she had started shaking. He shook his head no as she released a anxious little plea and then she was full blown hyperventilating behind him.

"Elena calm down," Remus demanded, knowing that at the rate she was going she would reach a point of no return fairly quickly; "Stop, you are going to make yourself pass out!" and she was, if her body didn't have an appropriate level of carbon dioxide she would either pass out or start to experience painful muscle spasms but this was a mounting panic attack and Remus knew telling her that pain was on the way was the last thing she needed to hear.

"I-" but her high breathing broke the breathy start to a sentence and she started to sob around her own compulsive breaths and now her hand was shaking uncontrollably against Remus's and she needed help and it was terrible because he was so close yet he could do nothing, how many spells did he know? How many potions? Damn, how many muggle first aid manoeuvres? And yet here was a healthy young woman breathing herself into shock at his back.

"Elena please please calm down" he begged her but she was begging too, much louder then him, crying "please" and "no" and "help" where ever she could fit it in between curdling breaths and she began to struggle in her seat and he knew she was in pain-

"It's okay Elena, please, Sirius is going to come and get us before anything happens, please just…please." and her hair tickled the side of his ear as he craned his neck around to try and face her and she shook her head furiously. He was trying desperately to struggle against the rope even though he knew it was useless and he could only speak to her and he wanted so desperately to reach out to her, to place a hand on her chest and measure her breathing against his so she would stop making those God awful sounds like she was being tortured right in his ear, gurgling, roaring, retching, sobbing breaths like she was being torn open from the inside. She needed to calm down, she was growing hysterical and the way she was convulsing indicated her legs were already seizing up.

"Elena shhh shhh sh, look breath with me breath with me listen, with me…" and he began to breath and her breath remained rapid and loud as he counted it for her; in- "two and three," and out and he exhaled and he counted again and her breath was stuttering around her sobs but she was nodding;

"Re- Remus I," she stuttered but he shushed her again;

"Just breath." he pleaded and she stank of fear and flowers and it made him want to cry but he didn't he just kept breathing and counting as her breathing remained rapid but became shallow like a child who was trying to talk through jerking tears after falling hard on the tarmac. Elena counted in her head, clouded and dizzy though it was a part of her was as rational as ever and she recognise it as shock but she made great efforts not to worry even a small bit about it because her body and a large part of her brain was in a nearly irretrievable panic. Remus was all she had to pull herself down on and she cleared her mind of everything but the sound of his voice and his slow measured breaths.

"I-I.." but he seemed to busy breathing to hear trying to stutter out, that it wasn't his fault, that she had meant to get upset to escape this. He just kept on like a metronome though so she tried to ignore the burn in her shoulders and the cramps in her legs and below her ribs and tried to synchronise her every molecule with his.

"shhh two and three and in…" Remus tried to keep his rhythm, he tried not to celebrate prematurely as she was almost with him, her progress only disrupted by stuttering of her sobs. They said nothing as she slowed more and more and when she was nearly still but for the lightest trembling the silence was the most perfect Remus had ever heard because calm a façade as he had been forced to maintain his heart was in his throat and he almost felt sick and it wasn't just the concussion… or the hangover. Beautiful as the sound of her quiet breathing following his was he felt as if he needed to hear her crisp confident voice to really feel at ease but as it turned out her manicured hand had somehow twisted free of the knot just enough for the young woman to hook her smallest finger around the pad of his thumb and for some reason that was all it took to convince him everything was going to be all right.

**A/N: Thanks for reading! And please please PLEASE review, also please let me know if there are any stories you would recommend ****J I finished the last of a lot of books so I'm up for a FanFicFest!**


	35. Get Out

At the end of her shift Anne was beyond any form of patience. The mottled bitten flesh of her hip was angry and heated under her too-tight too-warm dress making her grind her teeth as she smiled through the night. She had tried to ignore the sticky plastic feeling of the needlessly unlined leather against her skin and the aching itch of the ball of her feet but it had grated on her nerves. As she collapsed into the ladies changing room at the end of the night she was somehow, despite her utter frustration at the fact, pleased when she found Black was already in there. Obviously her reasoning wasn't based on some previously unfounded ecstatic happiness to see the handsome menace but rather a tear-jerking relief that she could avoid the exhausting humiliation of seeking her would-be-brother-in-law-out.

"Why am I not surprised?" she asked as she pushed herself into a more composed position before reconsidering and sinking back low into the slightly less than comfortable rapidly warming cold wood of the chair she sat on which formed a layer of almost-condensation against the bare skin at the backs of her heated aching thighs.

"because we agreed to meet after your shift?" he asked unfairly sober considering the amount he had had to drink.

"Could be," Anne mumbled suddenly feeling meeker now that she was actually faced with the prospect of the long awaited conversation; "though I'm not sure agreed is the right word in this case."

"You've been avoiding me." he accused openly, cutting to the point;

"You've been stalking me." she bristled and a grin suddenly dropped onto the wizards sour mouth.

"You've noticed then?"

"Yes as a shocking consequence of not being deaf, blind and brain dead I have somehow noticed your blatant and dogged pursuit along with every other toff in English Lit and yonder in the rooms of lunching ladies, remarkable isn't it?" she prided herself on looking supremely unaffected though she grew steadily more conscious of the neutral expression fixed on her face as she thought of the stupid fluttering fake eyelashes with tacky diamante detailing batting up at Sirius as he clenched his teeth further accentuating his already chiselled moderately delicious jaw line.

"Don't be like that Anne, it's not you, this isn't. The way you've been acting, it's like you've lost your mind. We can't go on like this-" she cut in

"You're less sober than I thought and my mind was already far from screaming _this man is really into his responsible drinking_."

"Stop being such a bitch I'm trying to talk to you."

"Don't be such a brat. I don't even want to look at you but you have to get your way don't you? It doesn't matter what I want, you claim that you are so sorry for all these lies and misleads and for the cruel and unusual punishment you have made my loving you into with your idiocy and your lack of consideration. You behave like a suffering martyr wallowing in humble guilt for all the time you spent judging and objectifying me and fucking deciding amongst your little tribunal of illogical logic where you stand with me and my family and with your own damn friends well fuck you and martyrdom because here we are and you don't even have the patience to not call me a bitch within the first five minutes of a session of patronising and I assume degrading half flirting which you so generously call a conversation. Do me a favour Black and spare me your mercy. Receiving the torture you call kindness is not how I intend to play out the last of my slightly less than human experience. Now get out."

"You're not less than human-"

"I said get out!" she shrieked fast and harsh and high and Sirius flinched and his mouth worked to say anything but he just didn't know or understand what could be said and he tried to get mad but he just felt so misunderstood by the woman he wanted to cry with frustration. What about your sister? Where are you staying? Have you spoken with Remus? You're being Juvenile, is this why you won't talk to me? I don't know why I even bother. Fuck you, fuck off then;

"I'm here if you change your mind." and he left her with her hair awry and her make-up just smudged enough to look like it had been there for the day and with his heart beating even more wildly then hers even though he didn't know why anymore than he knew why off all the things he felt he needed to say that was all that came out but there it was. He was already out the door and bastard that he was he couldn't believe that he felt like crying but then he was utterly wasted. He wondered where the guy who would have had his mouth on hers before conversation had even started had gone, that's all he had thought about all night, what she would taste like, feel like, sound like but he couldn't imagine actually making the move and it wasn't even about Elena in that moment, it was for the sake of that whiny bints irreparable heart that he had decided to give her two feet of that measly space. A territory he had given up what felt like weeks but had truly only been days to enter. He stared down his enchanted motorbike resting elegantly outside the club and his nostrils flared with frustration as he thought of how Anne had taken it for a ride with a complete lack of consideration for the value at which he held the purring black beast, it had held more of a hand in teaching him what hard work could do for a man than his family or his schooling ever had. He reached his hand into his coat pocket and fumbled around in it's dark emptiness for a moment. Then as quiet as could be anticipated from a woman with a limp a delicate step approached him in the same moment a dawning panic noted the absence of his keys, he was taken back again to that day he never wanted to remember. Yet his depressive drunk brain offered no such mercy.

"This isn't me chasing after you." she mumbled as he turned from his bike to face her still patting his pockets until he dropped them with a cautious realization as he eyed his coat in her hand. Her make-up was cleaned off for the most part showing through a girl he thought he knew. She held out the coat to him, her arm fully extended almost to the point of strain in an effort to distinguish that no-mans-land of distance between them with it's indiscernible crackling tension; "My manager sent me, you have another man's coat." he opened his mouth to say something but she shook the coat in his direction, blatantly ignoring him to the point of turning her face away as if the sight of him would be an offence; "Take it." and he did. She held her hand flat out and upturned closing and opening it in an impatient sporadic wave to urge him to pass the coat he had mistaken for his own back with speed. His brain buzzed somewhere pleading with him to pull forward some guise of sobriety as the thought danced through his head; the other man's coat. A few cars zipped by, he tossed his own jacket over the seat of the bike and pulled the leather one he wore off, realising the black hide was slightly less worn then his had been. Somewhere in his hazy mind that same hand points to a coat and a scarf in a room he swore never to return to you;_ Do you know who those things belong to? _His brow furrowed as he both reached for and ran from the painful but insistent memory. He put it in her hand and she pulled it to her quickly, almost curling around it. He cleared his throat but she ignored the need and cut across, hoarse;

"You're not driving," she stated, leaving out the 'are you?' to let it weigh on him like a demand and he felt his stomach drop like some terrible premonition as she narrowed her eyes at him, the coat folded over her arm. He could almost hear the clink of the penny drop_ You don't really think that she wilfully left do you?_ "You stink of fear, you know?" she hissed and he gulped as if someone had pulled the plug and drained him of any vigour _You don't have to answer to me Black,_

"and something else, almost like a hospital?" his voice almost breaking mid sentence _just your conscience._.

"What are you talking about?" she was already turning away and he was so close to fitting it together, why had he gotten so drunk?!;

"Wait," he tried throwing himself a step forward with the slurred word, stumbling, hating it. " listen, come with me." he reached out for her and she flinched, stumbling as she over corrected the movement of turning her back on him, a scowl fixed on her face. _What makes you so sure he'll come? _Oh Christ. Anne was storming off as Sirius tried to say something anything to really begin to express what his mind was right on the cusp of but the ocean between them broadened with each of her speedy measured steps which grated her like a knife.;

"Elena.."

"I don't want to hear it, go sober up Black, you're a mess." she called as she slipped back into the Y sealing the door with a bang and she prayed to God Almighty to let that be the end of it but of course it never would be. Sirius narrowed his eyes outside and heaving a sigh pulled a muggle pen from the back pocket off the same jeans he had worn to class earlier and by the light of his wand wrote the only thought he could summon up onto his arm.

_She said **he** would come, it smelt of_ **fear.  
**

As he shaped a craggy 'r' in his well trained handwriting which he had never managed to force to be less formal the Night Bus pulled up beside him from the road. He eyed his bike forlornly for a moment.

"Well are you comin' aboard young master?" sighing the young wizard agreed thinking of the uncomfortable amount of compressions such a ride inclined;

"I'm not driving, am I?" he put forth as he climbed aboard.

"I should hope not!" cried a shrunken; "as is you weren't mad as a Black already, you would have to be drunk too!" a neighbouring head cackled and Sirius remembered why he lived with muggles.


End file.
